Savior
by xHarleysAngelx
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Emmeline Harris is a wayward teen with a bad attitude and a complex family, full of dark secrets. Then after a drug deal gone wrong, she finds herself reluctantly drawn into the world of the Turtles. But as the secrets of Emmeline's past begin to leak out, can Raphael save her from herself or will he be the one who needs saving in the end?
1. Chapter 1

Savior:

A TMNT Fanfiction

By xHarleysAngelx

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Emmeline Harris is a wayward teen with a bad attitude and a complex family, full of dark secrets. Then after a drug deal gone, she finds herself drawn into the world of the Turtles. But as the secrets of Emmeline's past start to leak out, can Raphael save her from herself or will he be the one who needs saving in the end?

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

01

Emmeline Harris navigated her black-and-red Honda CB350 motorcycle through the streets of Chinatown, weaving her way in and out of traffic. Freezing rain mixed with snow dotted her helmet and heavy, leather jacket. Beneath that, she wore a knee-length black dress with a slit that ran up to her thigh. She knew that once she took her helmet off, no one would believe she was seventeen. Emmeline had been graced with pixie-like, angelic features that made her look like a perpetual child - soft, bouncy, chin-length black hair, electric blue eyes, and ears that rose to a jagged point - but that's what fake IDs were for. And the one the Purple Dragons had issued her was more than enough to get her into every club in New York City any night of the week.

She rounded the corner to a narrow alley, and parked her bike outside the restaurant she had agreed to meet the Dragons in. She pulled off her helmet and adjusted the strap on her red leather messenger bag, in which she carried the cargo they had requested. She didn't know why the Purple Dragons wanted this slimey, green canister of ooze. All she knew was that it was about to make her life a whole lot easier.

Emmeline walked down the alley silently and ducked under the red-and-gold awning quickly, so her makeup wouldn't get too messed up. She pushed open the door of the restaurant and was greeted by the grinning face of a _maneki-neko_ statue on the counter of the hostess stand. She smiled at the pretty Chinese girl who stood behind the counter. "I have a meeting with Hun."

The girl glowered up at her. "Name?" she said simply.

"Emmeline," Emmeline told her. "Emmeline Harris."

The girl stepped out from behind the counter and began to lead her through the crowded restaurant. "This way."

The restaurant was full of happy, unsuspecting people, trying to get out of the cold - families chattering in both English and Chinese. She didn't see anyone she recognized or anyone that looked like an undercover cop. For as long as she had been doing this, Emmeline had learned to tell the difference between a civilian and a cop. She had had to. It was the only way to survive this line of work.

This was a good place to meet, she decided as the hostess led her to a back corner booth illuminated by a red, neon sign that declared the bar next door The Jade Wolf.

Hun sat in the booth, waiting.

"Your guest has arrived, sir," the hostess informed him.

Hun scowled up at Emmeline. "You're late."

"Only by a couple of minutes," Emmeline simpered, sliding into the seat across from him. "You should learn to be more patient."

"You should learn not to toy with people more powerful than you," Hun shot at her. "Do you have it?"

Emmeline removed her messenger bag and set it in the seat beside her. Then she took off her jacket to reveal the draping sweetheart neckline of her little black dress, and cast Hun her most seductive smile. "You'll get it once I get what I came here for," she assured him.

Hun grunted and reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a handful of tiny, plastic baggies full of a fine, white powder and slid them across the table to her. "Here."

Emmeline opened one of the packets and dipped her finger in it. She licked the substance off her finger, making sure it was the real deal. It was. "Thank you," she said, sweeping the bags inside her messenger bag. She reached inside and her fingers closed around the canister.

At that exact moment, she heard the sound of glass breaking and then the restaurant was filled with thick, billowing black smoke.

Emmeline jumped to her feet as the restaurant was filled with screams, and the patrons started for the door. "I thought you said they were a rumor!" she shot, trying to make out Hun's figure in the smoke.

"Sweetheart," a voice said from behind her. "We're your worst nightmare." She felt the blade of the sai press against her porcelain skin.

A deafening bang sounded in her ear, and she knew that Hun had shot at the stranger and the sai disappeared from her throat as they retreated. Emmeline grabbed her coat and bag. Then she catapulted herself over the table and ran.

"The girl's got the canister!" she heard the stranger cry out from behind her.

Emmeline ran through the crowd, her eyes watering from the smoke. She couldn't believe this was happening - she couldn't believe that _they_ were real. Of course, she didn't necessarily believe that what had been perceived as a full-blown alien invasion was actually military weapon testing, either. Mostly, she couldn't believe that they were after _her_ \- Emmeline had done a lot of bad shit in her day, but what was so important about this stupid canister that made them want her?

She ducked into the girls' room - the only place that wasn't full of panicking crowds and black smoke. She wanted to wash her eyes out, but she knew she didn't have time. Instead, she wiped them on her wrist and looked around quickly. She saw a window above one of the stalls and ran for it. She slammed the door of the stall, locking it behind her - not that that would stop them but whatever. She climbed on top of the toilet and pushed the window open.

"You guys, she's in here!" she heard another voice - a different voice, belonging to a different stranger - cry out as the door of the rest room clattered open. "She's getting away."

Emmeline threw her bag and coat out the window. Then she grabbed the window ledge, and hoisted herself up. She was just barely small enough to make it through. She felt her knees scrape against the wet and freezing concrete as she pulled herself out of the bathroom and into the narrow side street that the window led to. She bolted and rounded the corner to the front entrance.

Wrong move.

Here, the crowds were thicker and harder to get through. Parents were looking for their screaming children, shouting in Mandarin, pushing and shoving their way into the street. Not only that but right in the middle of the street stood a five-foot-one tall turtle, wearing a blue mask and wielding a pair of twin katana.

 _They were definitely real._

The turtle's blue eyes met her own, and it was then Emmeline reached for the holster on her thigh. "I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this," she said.

Then she drew her gun and aimed for directly between his eyes.

"Leo!" she heard a voice cry out, and she knew it belonged to the one with the sai. Then before she could process what was happening, she was on the ground, her arms pinned to the icy pavement.

The one who pinned her was scowling down at her through a red mask with emerald green eyes and a look of pure rage painted his features. "Look, kid," he panted heavily. "Just give us the canister and the drugs, and we'll let you go."

Emmeline scowled back at him. "Screw you." Then she raised her leg, and kneed him hard in the crotch.

The turtle's face puckered like he had just swallowed a lemon and he released her immediately. Even if he was a turtle, he was still a man.

She grabbed her gun and her bag off the ground. Then she took off running, turning to shoot behind her every couple of feet. She ran down the alley where her bike was, replaced the gun in its holster, and gunned the engine.

She tore through the back street and took off north towards Little Italy. She roared past a red light, and then she heard the sirens coming after her. "Shit," she murmured, urging the bike to just a little faster. "C'mon."

Then a scream cut through the air, and she looked up just in time to see the turtle in the red mask leap off a building to her left. He pulled out of a backflip and landed deftly in front of her.

Emmeline tried to swerve around him, but she couldn't maneuver the bike fast enough. Instead the bike arched sideways and collided with him head-on, knocking him over and sending her flying.

She landed on the curb and felt her skull collide the freezing sidewalk. She tasted blood in the back of her mouth, and groaning she reached once again for her gun because she was certain the turtle in the red mask was going to come after her. As soon as it was in her hand, though, she felt it being knocked away and she had no strength to protest.

The turtle in the red mask reached down and grabbed her by the neck of her dress. He was sopping wet from the rain and the slush, and his glare was like death. "You," he growled at her. "You are the first chick I have ever wanted to kill, and _that_ is saying something."

Emmeline forced herself to smirk up at him. "I have a gift."

The turtle opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by another voice:

"Raphael, we need her alive - she might have information for us."

The one called Raphael threw her to the ground. She looked up to see the one in the blue mask standing over her. Two more turtles flanked him - one wore a purple mask and the other wore an orange one.

"I'm not telling you shit," she spat at them.

The one in blue, who seemed to the one in charge, and the one called Raphael exchanged a glance. The one in blue knelt down in front of her and said, "You've got two choices - come with us or get caught by the police."

* * *

This girl wasn't as stupid as she seemed, Raphael thought as he listened her footsteps on the fire escape that led to the rooftop where he and his brothers had gathered.

In the end, she had agreed to come with them - not that she had a choice. She was dressed nice, but she looked underage and Raph was pretty sure her parents wouldn't pay for a lawyer if they found out what she'd been up to. He looked up just as she stepped onto the slippery rooftop. The weather had finally cleared, but there was still panic in the streets below - panic that she had caused.

The girl walked over to them silently. Her wavy, black hair was plastered to her head and her eyes shone like sapphires in the dark. Her expression was angry and calculating. Her hands were shoved in the pockets of her leather jacket, and Raph would have bet anything that her fingers were already closed around the frame of her gun.

They were making a mistake to think they could trust her, he thought, but Leo was soft. He'd give anyone a second chance even if he knew they didn't deserve it.

"So," Leo said once the girl had gotten to where they stood. "Who are you?"

The girl kicked a pebble across the rooftop. "Emmeline Harris."

"That your _real_ name?" Raphael shot at her.

"The only one you need to know," Emmeline shot back.

"Look," Leonardo said before Raph had a chance to respond. "You're lucky to be here instead of a jail cell, and I think you know that. What you don't know is that we're ninjas. We don't exactly have a problem busting skulls if we need to. So either you tell us what we need to know or else you leave here in a body cast." He paused here to shrug. "The choice is yours."

"Did you rehearse that little speech?" Emmeline deadpanned.

Raphael lunged across the rooftop and grabbed her by the neck of her coat. He had had enough. He drew his sai and pressed it against the skin of her throat so hard that a fine, line of red appeared and blossomed across her skin. "He might have been kidding, but I am not. _This is your last warning._ "

"Alright, alright," Emmeline said. "I'll tell you what you wanna know."

Raphael threw her to the ground unceremoniously.

"Street names," Leo said simply. "You got one?"

Emmeline nodded. "The people I deal to call me Snow White. They think I look like her."

There was a pause as the turtles took in this news.

"You know," Michelangelo said, breaking the silence. "I can kinda see the resemblance."

Raph pressed his palm to his forehead, sighing. "Geez, Mikey."

Leo ignored both of them. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen," Emmeline said simply.

Raphael frowned. She was two years _older_ than them?

"You really don't look it," Donatello informed her.

Emmeline scowled at him. "It's part of my charm."

At that, Raph scoffed.

"How long have you been dealing?" Leonardo asked her.

Emmeline shrugged. "Two, maybe three years and before you ask, it's only coke. Usually. Sometimes I steal my mom's antidepressants when she pisses me off, but those don't go for as much."

"Why did you need the canister to get the drugs?" Donatello asked. "I mean, do you even know what that thing is?"

Emmeline looked at him and shrugged again. "I don't really care what it is or what it does. Normally, I buy the coke from Hun or one of his guys for a flat rate and resell it for twice as much. I just didn't have the money this time around, so we made a deal -"

Raph cut her off. "If you could get your hands on a canister, Hun would trade you for the drugs."

" _A canister?_ " Emmeline echoed, looking at him. "You mean there are more of these things out there?"

Leo ignored her. "Do you know what Hun and the Dragons were gonna do with the canister once they had it?"

"I don't know," Emmeline said, shaking her head. "Sell it, probably. That's about all you can do with something like that unless you're a scientist or something, right?"

Raph and Leo exchanged a glance. It was easy enough to piece the puzzle together: Hun wanted the canister, so he could sell it to Shredder. Emmeline was just the middleman.

Raphael walked over to her and held his hand out expectantly. "Hand it over now."

No smartmouth comment this time. Emmeline reached in her messenger back, and pulled out the battered glass canister. The glass was cracked a little, but it didn't seem to be leaking. She handed it to him silently.

Raph handed the canister to Donnie, who deposited it in his own bag.

"And the drugs," Leo added.

Emmeline rolled her eyes, but pulled out the packets of cocaine nonetheless and handed them over.

Raphael carried the packets to the edge of the roof and threw them off silently. They had no use for them, and now neither did she.

"Now what?" Emmeline asked them. "Can I just go on my merry way?"

Leonardo smiled at her. "Here's how this is gonna work: My brother placed a tracker on you, and he's gonna follow you home, so even if you manage to get rid of it we still know where you sleep at night." He pulled his T-phone off his belt. "You're gonna put your number in here, and if we need you we'll be in contact. In the meantime, you're gonna break off all contact with Hun and the Purple Dragons. That is the _easy_ way."

Emmeline gaped at him. "Wait a minute, you don't understand - I can't just cut off Hun. It's not that easy."

"You might not believe us," Michelangelo said. "But we're doing this for your own good. Those guys are no joke."

"And when Mikey's serious, you know things are bad," Raphael told her.

Leonardo pressed his T-phone into the palm of her hand. "You got a phone, right?"

Emmeline didn't bother asking any questions. She pulled her phone out and thrust it at him.

"Obviously, if the Dragons come after you, you should call the police," Leonardo told her, putting his number in the phone. "If that doesn't work, then contact us. As a last resort," he added. He handed the phone to Raphael.

Raph frowned down at the smart phone. "You're kidding, right?" he said, looking at Leo. "Why would I -"

"Just do it, Raph," Leo said, cutting him off with a scowl.

"Don't worry," Emmeline told him reassuringly. "You'd be the last one I'd call."

Raphael put in his information in and thrust the phone at Mikey silently.

Once Mikey was done with it, he handed it over to Donnie.

Then it was back in Emmeline's hands. "Can I go now?"

"You're free to go," Leonardo told her.

Emmeline shoved her phone in her messenger bag. Then she turned and made her back over to fire escape, which she had used to get up there in the first place.

Leonardo gave her a five minute head start. Just long enough, he thought, to get down the escape and on her bike. Then he turned to Raphael and instructed him simply, "Follow her."

A/N: Okay, this is an experiment and based off the reviews I get, this story could very well be going nowhere. The story is set in the earlier half of the second season of the 2012 series, but Raphael's personality is sort of a mash-up of the 2012 version, the 2003 version, and the 1990 movie version because that's my favorite. The story will deal with some heavy stuff, so if you think you can't handle it then don't read it. That's really all I can say for now. Also I realize most people hate OCs, so I tried to make Emmeline as interesting as possible and I swear, she is not a Karai copycat. Hopefully, she doesn't seem like one. Also I just wanted to say that to justify my creating an OC, I find it a little unrealistic that the Turtles have had so little contact with humans since they live and are very active in a city with a population of **8.5 million** people.

Please, let me know what you think of the story so far and if you think it is worth continuing.

Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

02

Seething, Raphael followed Emmeline into the heart of Manhattan. She didn't bother trying to shake him, he noticed. If anything, she was too busy trying to dodge the police sirens that seemed now permeated all of Chinatown thanks to her little date night with Hun.

The building she led him to was a tall, glass skyscraper that rose to a jagged point in the night sky. It was the kind of building with a doorman and high-end security systems already installed. Nothing that could keep out Donnie's tech but still fancy.

Scowling down at her from the top of the neighboring building, Raphael watched Emmeline guide her bike into the parking garage across the way. His anger melted slowly away and he found he couldn't help but be intrigued. If she really lived in a building like this - a high end apartment building in the nice part of Battery Park City - then what was she doing selling drugs to make money?

It just didn't make sense.

Just then, Raphael's T-phone went off and he jumped, startled. He grabbed the phone and punched the green TALK button. "Yeah, I got a lock on her location," he said into the phone.

* * *

Emmeline's phone rang the entire way home. Each time, she let it go straight to voicemail without bothering to check who it was. She knew for certain that it was probably Hun or one of the other Dragons. Instead, she switched the phone to silent mode once she was in the elevator that would take her to her parents' loft.

She was gonna have enough explaining to do without her phone ringing off the hook.

Sighing, Emmeline watched the different floor numbers light up as the elevator took her slowly upwards. She couldn't stop replaying all the mistakes she had made - giving the turtles her street name, letting them get her phone number, telling them she would break off contact with Hun. Like that would ever happen. Giving them her real name had been pretty stupid, too, but she was already a pretty well-known character on the streets thanks to her connections with the Purple Dragons. It'd would have been easy for them to figure out who she was with just a little asking around.

Not that they would need to. Judging from that weird, home-brewed cellphone their leader had had, they weren't exactly hurting for technology. She wondered who exactly they had got to put it together for them. Maybe it was someone she needed to get in touch with - an untraceable cell phone would come in handy in times like these.

Her cell phone vibrated inside her messenger bag just as the button for the twelfth floor lit up and the elevator doors slid open with a quiet _ding_. "Yes, Hun, I will call you," she said, rolling her eyes as she started off down the hallway.

She stopped in front of number 13B and put in the security code for the alarm before she unlocked the door and stepped inside. The building itself already had a security system in place - one that was supposed to cover the whole building. The one that her parents had hooked up to her house, though, was an extra precaution they took because of Emmeline's extracurricular activities. Tonight wasn't the first time she had been in real danger, but as far her parents were concerned all that was behind them. In other words, they had no idea about her job as a dealer.

Once she was inside her parents' four-bedroom loft, Emmeline closed and locked the door behind her.

"Emmeline," came a soft gasp.

She spun around to see a slight blond woman not much older than her with big green eyes. Despite the fact that she was only twenty-three, the woman still stood a whole head taller than her. Behind the woman stood a three-year-old toddler with black hair and blue eyes that mimicked Emmeline's. They were her little brother, Owen, and his nanny, Becca. The two of them stood in the center of the combination living room-kitchen. Becca gaped at her, and her brother's eyes were glued to the television.

Books had been pulled down off the shelves that lined the walls of the living room, and a Disney movie was playing on surround-sound. The dishes from dinner had been washed and were drying in the dishrack - Becca disliked the dishwasher, for reasons Emmeline would never understand - and Saran Wrapped plates of leftovers had been left out.

"Don't freak out," Emmeline said quickly, taking in Becca's panicked expression.

"What happened?" Becca asked, rushing towards her. "Was it _him_ again?"

Emmeline dropped her messenger bag on the floor and hung up her leather jacket before she responded. "This had nothing to do with him. I just crashed on my bike in Chinatown, that's all."

It wasn't completely untrue.

"Chinatown?" Becca echoed. "What were you doing there?"

"Just going for a ride," Emmeline invented on the spot. "Window shopping - Christmas is gonna be here soon, you know." Which was true. It was already the first of December.

Becca studied her for a moment, considering this. "Alright," she said after she had decided that Emmeline was telling the truth. Then she returned to her seat on the plush, black sofa and turned her gaze to Owen, who was still engrossed in his movie. "You should be more careful, though. Your mom is gonna freak out over that cut on your neck - you know she doesn't like for you to run around looking like a hooligan."

Emmeline scoffed as she grabbed her bag off the floor and started for the hallway that led to her bedroom. "Maybe she shouldn't have let me buy a motorcycle then."

She passed two doors in the darkened hallway - her parents' room and the door that led to what was once her elder sister's bedroom - before coming to a halt in front of her own room. She locked the door behind her and then grabbed her cellphone out of her bag. She punched the first number on speed-dial.

Hun picked up on the first ring. "I've been trying to get a hold of you."

"I know," Emmeline said, nodding. She wandered over to her stereo and turned it on, blasting the volume as loud it would go in case Becca was eavesdropping.

Then she turned and surveyed her room. It was a nice enough room - beige walls and carpet, a queen-size platform bed that dominated most of the back wall was covered with a fluffy maroon comforter and matching pillows, a glass corner desk that housed her rose-gold Apple Macbook, and a semi-private bathroom that she shared with her sister, Vivika. Well, now, she shared it with Becca since Vivika had moved into the dorms at NYU and only came home to do laundry on weekends.

"Tell me you have the canister," Hun breathed heavily into her ear.

Emmeline crossed the room and threw herself down on the bed. It had been a long, long stressful night and all she wanted was to forget any of it had ever happened, but she had to take care of Hun first. "Look," she said, bracing herself for his fury. "I had no choice. They were kick my ass and hand me over to the -"

"No choice?" Hun repeated disbelievingly. "No choice - you know how to shoot a gun, don't you?"

"I had to use up all my bullets trying to get away from those -" Her voice faltered as she searched for the right word. "...Those guys after you abandoned me, and I'm not like you. I'm not a martial artist. I can't fight my way out of anything."

"You listen to me," Hun told her. "I gave you your drugs, and now you're gonna find me another canister -"

"But I don't have any of the drugs," Emmeline cut him off. "I had to hand them over with the canister." Most of them, anyway.

There was no reason for anyone to know about the solitary ounce of coke she had kept for herself.

"That's _your_ problem!" Hun growled at her. "You owe me for those drugs, and if you don't find me another canister then the hospital bills you're paying off are gonna be tripled by the end of the week."

Emmeline froze. "Are you threatening me?"

"Me?" Hun laughed humorlessly. "I'm gonna be the least of your worries. Did you ever stop to think about the guys I was supposed to sell that canister to - well, they know all about you. They know who you are and where you live and who you love."

"You leave him the hell out of this," Emmeline said, her voice raising to a shout. She prayed that Becca couldn't hear her in the other room.

"You brought him into this yourself when you handed that canister over to the turtles, you dumb bitch!"

Emmeline hung up the phone before he had a chance to say anything more. It was pretty clear all where this was going, and already her mind was reeling. The gears were turning in her brain as she tried to figure out how she could get her hands on another one of those canisters - whatever they were. But she kept coming up blank.

Getting her hands on the first canister had been sheer dumb luck. Hun had mentioned about a month or so ago that he needed the canister because it was valuable. He'd said that if she could get it, he would forgive the debt she had racked up from buying too much coke too soon and he'd trade her more drugs for it. Luckily, Emmeline had a friend who was good with computers and who had access to the dark web. She paid him $500 to post an ad in search of the canister.

Then she paid him another $500 to go pick up the canister when someone responded that they had found one two weeks later. She traded him an eighth coke and a tenth of weed in exchange for the canister, and paid off the debt she owed to the Purple Dragons in $200 increments. Handing over the canister to the Dragons would have meant paying off her debt to them completely, and the money she got from the coke in exchange for it would be all hers.

If she had only been able to get the canister to Hun tonight, all would have been forgiven.

Now, she was expected to find a _second_ canister?

It just wasn't possible. Last time, she had just gotten lucky. This time...Well, there was no "this time" because it just wasn't going to happen. So what was she supposed to do?

She thought back to what the turtles' leader had said about going to the police if the Dragons got in contact again. That was one option, sure, but she knew for a fact that the police probably had a warrant out for the dealer known as Snow White. What would they do when they found out that was her?

Would they help her?

Then there were the turtles themselves. She knew two of them by name - Raphael was the one she had kicked in the balls and he had called the one in the orange mask Mikey. Their leader, the one in the blue mask who bore the twin katana, had said that if the police couldn't help she should contact them. But it was _because_ of them that she was in this mess to begin with.

Emmeline's phone went off again, but instead of checking to see who it was she simply pressed the power button on the back of the phone and turned it off. Then she stood up, peeled off her damp dress and sodden flats, and wandered into her bathroom. She turned the hot water on the shower to full, and then she stood silently beneath it's powerful spray and let it wash over her.

How did she always find herself in these situations - situations in which she was helpless?

She had been so careful for the past couple of years. She'd learned to shoot and only used her father's gun, so a firearm could never be traced back to her directly. She'd learned basic self-defense, and had taken to growing pot in her closet, so she would have some source of income in case her other deals fell through. She was slowly but surely paying off her hospital bills - the one thing her parents refused to help her with, despite the fact that their insurance would more than cover it. They didn't care how she got the money - all they knew was that she had a job and an income, and that the bills were slowly going away. That was all they cared about but now...

She was in another helpless situation, and she couldn't figure a way out. All she could think of was if she could somehow get the money she owed the Purple Dragons, they might not come after her. But what about the people they were supposed to sell the canister to?

Maybe, Emmeline thought as she climbed out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself, maybe that had been an empty threat. It wouldn't be the first time Hun had tried to intimidate her.

She wandered through her bedroom and into her closet where she pulled out a Rangers jersey and a light pair of blue night shorts as pajamas. She was going to have to hope that an empty threat was all it was.

She had no other choice.

After she was dressed, Emmeline wandered out into her family's galley kitchen where Becca had set out the leftovers. She picked through them carefully, her thoughts still full of the canister and the turtles.

The turtles...What were they, exactly?

She had heard rumors about them before - man-sized, hulking turtles skilled in the martial arts. After the day flying saucer-like spheres had filled the sky, dubbed by the government as a military testing procedure those rumors had gotten harder to ignore. Still she had assumed that were just that - rumors. Bedtime stories meant to scare people like her off the streets. She had been wrong, though.

They were real, but how was that possible - and why did they want the canister? Why had they gone through the trouble of tracking her down in order to take it from her, and what they did care if the Purple Dragons came after her?

What made them so high and mighty? If the Dragons did attack her, it would be their fault, anyway.

" _They know who you are and where you live and who you love."_

Hun's words echoed inside of Emmeline's head as she rinsed her dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. Then she wandered over to the living room where Becca was reading Owen a story from one of the books they had pulled down from the shelves.

The living room was large and square, dominated by a plush, black sectional sofa with a glass coffee table decorated by flowers and books meant solely to look interesting. Three of the walls were lined with bookshelves, and the fourth wall, which faced east, was a solid glass window that overlooked the city and the harbour. Emmeline's mother was a professor, specializing in Eastern-Asian literature and her father was a defense lawyer, struggling to make partner. Vivika, Emmeline's older sister, was studying to become get a teaching major, so she could teach English in foreign countries - mainly China. That's where their grandmother was from on their mother's side.

Emmeline's grandmother had married a man of German descent after she came to America and Emmeline's father was a full-blooded, New York born American, so you could hardly tell by looking at Emmeline or her siblings that they were part Asian. After Emmeline's grandmother had died when she was fourteen, she felt a pull towards her Chinese culture. She wanted to learn more about what had made her grandmother who she was. That was what had led her to Chinatown.

And then to the Dragons.

"Becca," Emmeline said, turning to the nanny with a smile. "Could I play with him for a bit?" She indicated to her younger brother.

"Of course," Becca smiled up at her.

"Cool," Emmeline said.

She knelt down in front of the television and hooked up the Switch gaming system her parents had bought them as an early Christmas present. Owen didn't quite know how to play yet, being three and all, but he was getting the hang of it. He knew that the joystick made the characters move around, and that was about it. So Emmeline plugged in the Mario Kart game, since that involved the least amount of hand-eye coordination and gaming know how. She selected the easiest race track and then handed Owen one of the controllers.

Her brother stared down at the controller confused for a moment before he seemed to remember to what it exactly was for.

* * *

Hours later, after Owen and Becca were both asleep Emmeline wandered into her parents' bedroom. She replaced the bullets in the chamber of her father's gun and then locked it back up in the safe where he kept it. Then she went into the master bathroom and riffled through the bottles in the medicine cabinets until she found the Zoloft. She took it back in her room and divided the pills into tiny baggies, three at a time. Her mother didn't take the medication on a regular basis. She only took it as needed, so Emmeline knew it was unlikely she would notice it was missing.

Then Emmeline went to her own closet where she had a marijuana plant growing beneath a sunlamp. She pruned the ripest leaves and then cut them into miniscule pieces. She used the scale in the kitchen to sort the pot into increments of ounces, and like the pills, sorted those increments into their own separate bags.

Then she retreated to her room where she dug the single ounce cocaine she had kept for herself out of her messenger bag. She cut it into lines on the surface of her desk and then dug a plastic straw out of one of the drawers.

It was around one-thirty in the morning when she finally heard the front door of the loft open and slam shut again, and she knew that her father had come home. Her mother had not come home in two weeks.

* * *

Raphael stood doubled over and panting slightly on the makeshift training area back in the lair. The floor was lined with oriental rugs, softened and worn thin from years of abuse, and to his left stood a closed set of shoji doors that separated his master's room from the rest of the lair. All were artifacts that the turtles had rescued from the dumpsters of Asian antiquity stores throughout the years - objects deemed worthless by society but that meant everything to the turtles and their master.

It was well past midnight, but Raphael couldn't seem to fall asleep. So he did what he always did when he couldn't sleep - train. As he did so, the events from the rest of the night played on repeat inside his head: Emmeline, the canister, the drugs. He couldn't understand how they were all connected. Naturally, Emmeline was selling the drugs for money, but what did she need the money _for_ \- her fancy motorcycle?

Why the hell do you care? Raphael thought, straightening himself up and turning back to the attack dummy. He retrieved his sai from its abdomen and sent it flying with a roundhouse kick to the head. The dummy collided with the back wall and fell to the floor with a _thump_.

Emmeline Harris was nothing more than some pain in the ass kid involved with some very bad people. In what way and how she had come to be involved with them was her business, and Raph wasn't interested in making it any of his own.

Plus, there was off the chance that she was simply a complete psycho.

"Snow White," he scoffed, remembering the girl's street name as a dealer. He crossed the training area and righted the dummy for another attack.

The only thing princess-like about that girl was the apartment her daddy paid for.

"Tell me," a voice said and he turned to see Leo sitting on the one benches in the sunken pit that served as their living room, facing him. "You aren't pretending that dummy is her, are you?"

Raphael sank a sai deep into the dummy's front temporal lobe. "Were you the one kicked in the balls tonight?"

"Still sore about that?" Leonardo laughed.

"Ha ha, Leo," Raphael said humorlessly. "You know, we've been fighting bad guys for a long time and she's the first one that tried something that dirty." He went to go sit on the bench in the pit opposite of the one his older brother sat on.

The turtles had tried, with help from April O'Neil and more recently Casey Jones, to make the abandoned subway terminal they called home just that - homey. The benches that had at one point operated as a lobby for train passengers were littered with blankets, beaten up throw pillows, and even a bean bag chair. Nearby, a tire swing hung over the murky depths of a burst sewer main, and an ancient oak tree that had no business surviving this far underground clung to the distant sunlight offered by a manhole tunnel devoid of its cover. Somehow, Donnie had managed to configure an old box television with an antenna and an NES system, so they had some form of entertainment. April had donated a DVD player, but they either had to get an adaptor of some sort or new a television, and being what they were it wasn't a simple matter of just going into an electronics store and asking the for new Samsung model.

Not that they could afford it.

Any money the turtles managed to scrape together came from discarded bottles and cans, and most of it went towards cheap frozen pizzas - Mikey's favorite food being the only one they could actually afford. Other than top ramen, the _other_ house speciality.

"You were the one who didn't dodge her in time," Leonardo said, bringing Raphael back to earth.

"How the hell do you dodge an attack like that?" Raph shot at him.

Leo smiled at him, glad that they weren't fighting for once as they so often did. "Maybe we should add that move to our training repertoire." He sighed. "I know you're not happy with the idea of her contacting us for help if she needs it -"

"That's because she's a bad person, Leo," Raphael reminded him. "A bad kid. She sells drugs and carries a gun and has ties to gang members. Since when we have protected people like that?"

Leonardo looked at him, his smile faded into a stern, hardset line. "We don't discriminate against people who need our help, Raphael. Besides, Splinter agrees with my decision. It's the kind of thing he taught us to do - the _right_ thing to do."

"You only think that because you're the one saying so," Raphael countered him. "If I was the one calling the shots on this one, you'd disagree with me, too. She shot at us, Leo, _with a gun_. And I'm not so sure that she's out there, selling drugs and hanging with the Purple Dragons because the needs the money or whatever. If you had seen where she lives -"

"That is enough, Raphael."

The two of them turned to see that their master and father, for intents and purposes, Splinter had emerged from his room. He stood at the head of training area and closed the shoji door silently. Then he turned to look down at his two sons with an intense gaze.

"But, Master -" Raphael started.

"You of all people, Raphael, should know that we all have reasons for the things we do," Splinter said, cutting him off. "Never presume to know the path of others until you have yourself have walked it."

Raphael shook his head. "You wouldn't be saying about Shredder."

"Shredder is a sociopath," Leonardo interjected. "He's killed dozens if not hundreds of people."

Splinter nodded. "The Shredder is a rare breed of monster, not often encountered. However, the girl you encountered tonight…" His voice trailed off and he exchanged a glance with Leonardo. "I believe she may simply be lost in the darkness of her own heart, and frankly, Raphael, from what your brothers have said about her she reminds me of you."

* * *

A/N: Alright, you guys, this is gonna be the last chapter until next weekend. Just a quick shout out to everyone who took the time to read and review this: Thank you so much for your kind words and for your support. Without you guys, this story would have been a one-shot.

Since you guys seem to like it, though, I will be continuing Emmeline's story. It won't be pretty to tell, but hopefully you guys enjoy reading it. Thanks again, and please take the time to review this chapter and lemme know what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

03

Two days had passed without event in the sewer lair. Raphael spent that time quietly seething over the fact that his family thought he was the slightest bit similar to that crack-dealing maniac. His anger had finally worn off, though, and he found himself drawn out of his room by the scent of pizza and the sound of laughter.

"What's going on here?" he asked, leaning against the ancient oak tree. He tried to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

"Well, what do you know?" Michelangelo said as the others turned to look at Raph. "He can talk!"

Raphael brandished his sai threateningly. "Want me to make it so you _can't_?"

Leonardo cast him a dark look. "Why'd you bother coming out if you're just gonna cause trouble?"

Raphael scowled but before he had a chance to respond, April was walking over to him, grinning.

"We found a box of old VHS tapes in Casey's attic," she said, gesturing to the grungy boy who was sitting next to Mikey, talking and laughing. "So we're having a movie marathon. Why don't you watch with us?"

Raph stared at her. He wasn't sure how - or why - April had managed to find her way back into their lives. Between Donnie's more than pathetic crush on her and the fact that they were responsible for turning her dad into a giant fruitbat, he was surprised she wanted anything to do with them. Still, it wasn't her fault his brothers were idiots.

Raphael pushed past her with a sigh. "Why I would wanna waste my time with something like that?"

He wandered into their tiny galley kitchen where a pizza box lay open on the gleaming steel countertop. He took a seat at the island and helped himself to a slice of pepperoni. Then he became aware of the buzz of static and low voices amidst his family's chaos. Frowning, he looked around until he spotted the police scanner sitting on the counter next to the sink.

"We're trying to keep an eye out on the Purple Dragons."

Raphael turned to see Donatello walking over to him. "You think they'll be going after more mutagen?" he asked, taking a bite of his pizza.

"Well," Donnie said, sitting down beside him. "If they were _supposed_ to sell the canister we took to the Foot, we figure Shredder's not gonna be happy when he finds out they lost it."

"So they're gonna need to find a replacement - fast," Raph said, nodding.

"And they've got more eyes on the street than we do," Donatello reminded him. "People like that girl Emmeline - maybe younger and more inexperienced. One of them has gotta mess up eventually, and when they do we'll know it."

Raphael nodded silently, scowling at the sound of Emmeline's name. It was the first time he had heard it spoken out loud in two days, but it still brought the same questions to mind:

What was a girl like her doing selling drugs?

And what if, maybe, Splinter had been right?

Not about him being like her. That was beyond ridiculous. But, maybe, she did have a reason for doing what she did and maybe it was even possible that it was a good reason.

Still, though, Raphael thought, that didn't make her a good person. Like it or not, Emmeline was still out there selling drugs. Drugs that killed people and ruined people's lives bit by bit.

In that way, she was just as bad as the Shredder.

Raphael looked up at Donatello silently. He followed his gaze to where April sat beside Casey, laughing at one of his jokes.

* * *

Emmeline carefully maneuvered her bike into the last available parking spot outside of Franklin Prep. She took her helmet off and shook her hair out, ignoring the looks she got from the other students. She had long ago adjusted to her reputation as the school's resident bad girl. It always amazed her that she managed to make it through the day without somebody calling her parents.

Then again, it's not like she was stupid enough to bring drugs on campus - well, not outside the parking lot, anyway. She kept them locked up in her bike's saddlebag. The faculty couldn't come anywhere near her bike without a reason - a good reason.

And Emmeline wasn't about to give them one.

She grimaced as she crossed the parking lot and climbed the front steps, tugging on the skirt of her plaid, navy uniform.

The good thing about Franklin Prep was that it was the kind of school with a high tuition and a student body made up of seemingly innocent wanna-be socialites. Most of them were too worried about losing their trust funds to cause any trouble. Aside from Emmeline, the only drama that went down in this school was which new girlfriend Alex Matthews happened to be cheating on and with whom. The other students even made sure to smoke off campus. All of this filled the school board with such a strong sense of false security that they hadn't even bothered installing metal detectors. Someone could have waltzed into the building with a bomb strapped to their chest and all they'd have to get around were a few cameras and a handful of guards - one of whom the Purple Dragons had paid off to turn a blind eye towards any of Emmeline's activities.

Emmeline's phone went off as she made her way to her locker. "Been doing that a lot lately," she muttered, pulling the phone from her messenger bag. She got to her locker and checked the Caller ID.

She had to be careful about the calls she accepted. It had only been three days since the turtles had apprehended her stash and the canister, but she was already getting calls from angry clientele. And the thing about any dealer's clients was that they were dangerous, Emmeline's clients especially so: People didn't just snort coke so they could get high. They did it so they could feel something - anything to help them forget. When they didn't get it in time, they got angry.

Thankfully, though, it was just one of her dealer friends calling. "Trey," she greeted him nonchalantly. "I take it this means you're up for the deal?"

"Snow," Trey sighed into the phone. "I told you before I don't deal to minors and I don't do loans. You're asking for both -"

"I proposed a trade," Emmeline corrected him. "My grass for your snow - you know my shit's clean. I wouldn't offer you soiled goods."

"That's not how it works," Trey informed her. "What you're offering doesn't measure up to what my product is worth. That means if you take from me, you'll owe money to _two_ people. _That is a loan._ "

Emmeline pulled some books out of her locker and piled them into her bag. Time to try a different tactic. "The pills aren't cutting it. How else am I supposed to get Hun's money - you know I'll never find another one of those canisters."

"You should have thought of that before you handed his shit over to the turtles."

"Turtles?" Emmeline echoed, all of her earlier pretenses suddenly gone.

"That's right," Trey told her. "I know. _Everyone knows._ You're on the Dragons' radar now, and you're on your own."

The line went dead.

Emmeline slammed her locker door shut, and pressed her forehead against the cool, metallic surface. She had only managed to make $800 since she had started pushing the pills. She owed Hun $3,000, and no one was going to help her get it.

* * *

Emmeline spent the first few periods in a quiet daze. She calculated in her head how much she could make if she sold all of her weed by the end of the week. It wasn't enough.

When the bell rang at eleven-thirty, signaling the start of lunch she got to her feet silently. She waited for the rest of the students to trail out of the room before she headed for the cafeteria. It was crowded and too noisy for her liking.

She bought a can of diet soda from one of the vending machines against the back wall. Then she made her way to the courtyard that separated Franklin Prep from the attached middle school. It had started raining, so the cobblestones and benches were soaked with mud. Even the guards had retreated back inside the school. She was surprised it wasn't snowing yet.

Emmeline made her way across the courtyard to a small alcove, sheltered from the rain by the school's sloping roof. She pulled the tab on her soda and sighed, taking a sip. She was screwed. Totally and completely screwed, and she didn't see anyway out of the situation.

"Yo, Snow!"

She looked up to see an aging white man wrapped in a gray sweatshirt with thinning, dark brown hair walking towards her. His name was Carl Martinez. He was one of her customers.

Emmeline blinked rainwater out of her eyes and stared at him through the steady waterfall of rain that streamed from the gutters. She set the soda down on a nearby bench. "What are you doing, Carl - how the hell did you find me?"

Carl stood staring at her in the middle of the courtyard, the rain soaking his sweatshirt. "Everyone knows where to find you," he informed her. "Dragons put the word out."

Emmeline looked at him warily. She noticed a slight bulge near his waistline, and somehow she didn't think it was because he was happy to see her. Had Hun actually leaked her info to this crazy addict - it would be the first time he had ever done something like that to her. The first time in a while anyway, and if he had told Carl who else had he told?

"They said you ain't got the shit," Carl went on, sliding one hand down his pants. He pulled out a steel pipe, long and rusted. "I don't believe them. You wouldn't betray me like that, would you, Snow?"

Emmeline reached inside the inner pocket of her school blazer and gripped the handle of the switchblade she kept with her at school. She shook her head slowly. "Of course not, Carl. Listen, you should go see Hun. He can hook you up -"

Carl took a couple slow, shaky steps towards her. "Maybe I should have listened to them. Or maybe - maybe you're just being selfish."

Emmeline pulled the knife out and pushed the button on the handle, popping the blade out. At the same time, Carl ran towards her, raising the pipe high above his head. She raised her knife to strike back just as he brought it down on her.

But it never made impact.

She looked up to see a thin, Chinese guy with a soul patch and a violet dragon tattoo wrapped around his arm, gripping the pipe silently. He yanked it out of Carl's grasp and pushed him backwards away from Emmeline.

"Fong?" she gasped.

"You should get out of here, Carl," Fong said, ignoring her. "Hun is waiting on you with your shit, and he don't like to be kept waiting. You better go now before he sells it to someone else."

Carl looked from Emmeline to Fong and back again. He opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it when he saw the look on Fong's face. He nodded silently. Then he turned and walked away.

Fong threw the pipe down as Emmeline closed the switchblade and shoved it back inside her blazer. "Look how popular I've gotten," she smirked. "Two gentleman callers in one day."

Fong turned around to face her, scowling. Then he drew back his hand and slapped her hard across the face. He hit her so hard that the ring he wore tore at her flesh and a trail of blood trickled down her cheek.

Emmeline stumbled backwards and fell over onto the wet cobblestones.

He knelt down in front of her and grabbed her roughly by the jaw. "This isn't a social call, you hear me?" he said, tilting her chin up, so she was looking at him head-on. "You stopped being on our good side the second you handed that canister over to the turtles. Now, I'm here to deliver a message."

"Look, I'll have your money -"

"No, no, no," Fong said, cutting her off. "This isn't something money can fix. You made us look bad, and you can't just buy back a good reputation. Lucky for you, Hun likes you. He's _always_ liked you -"

Emmeline pulled out of his grasp with a scowl. "Get to the point."

"This is your last chance," Fong spat at her. "You've got three days to bring us another canister. If you don't have it by then, we're gonna make whatever Carl was gonna do to you look gentle. Do you remember what we put you through way back when - we'll make that look _fun_."

"Why didn't you just let him attack me then?" Emmeline asked, narrowing her eyes at him, and getting right to the point. "What difference does it make if it's you or some damn addict?"

Fong reached out and closed his fingers around her throat. He pulled her sharply towards him. "Because you belong to us, you little bitch, and you better not ever forget it. No one - not even those god damn turtles - is gonna wanna save a piece of shit like you. Do you know why - because you're a shriveled up crack-whore and everyone knows it." He threw her down onto the slippery stones, splattering her with mud. Then he stood up and kicked her hard in the stomach.

Emmeline cried out loudly and reached inside her blazer for the switchblade. But Fong kicked it out of her hand as soon as it was out. Then he turned and started to leave.

"Three days," he called over his shoulder as he left.

Emmeline lay on the ground, soaked and biting back tears. They didn't want money and there was no way she was gonna find another one of those canisters in three days. They were just gonna keep coming and coming.

She grabbed her knife out of the mud and pushed herself to her feet. Then she ran around the side of the school to the student parking lot, and climbed on her bike. She was doing what she should have done years ago. She had no choice.

She saw that now.

* * *

Emmeline pulled her bike to a halt in front of the Lower Manhattan Precinct. She took her helmet off and started up the front steps. Then she froze once she got to the door.

There, on the bulletin board above the reception desk, was a poster of a young girl barely even a teenager with chin-length, bouncy black hair and eyes like steel. Printed across the poster were the words "Snow White: Wanted for the Trafficking of Illegal Substances".

It was her.

Emmeline staggered slowly backwards down the steps. She ran back to her bike and revved the engine. Then she peeled out as fast as she could, leaving jagged black stains on the pavement behind her.

She drove through the city with the rain pounding on her helmet, clouding her vision. She drove without knowing where to go. What if the Dragons followed her home?

They had done it before.

As she wound her way in and out of traffic, Emmeline found herself wishing someone would smash into her, crushing the bike and herself along with it before anyone else had the chance to. Because if what Fong had said was true, she already knew the Dragons wouldn't kill her. Instead they would leave her gasping for breath and praying for death.

And she had nowhere left to run.

* * *

A/N: Thank you, everyone, for reading.

Special thanks goes to out to MegMoo, Arweenqueen, Tyra, and Nelson, and to all the guests who took the time to read and review my work. I really appreciate you taking the time to read this and all your kind words. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

And, as always, happy reading.

Thanks, guys!


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

04

Bright, flashing lights danced along the dark walls of Club Ember. The floor shook from the weight of hundreds of scantily-clad dancers who bounced in time to the blaring hiphop. In a corner booth close to the bar and waitresses, Emmeline sat curled up in Alex Matthews' lap, surrounded by twenty of his closest friends.

Most of them stared her like she was some sort of science-fiction creature. Alex hadn't taken much convincing, though. He wasn't exactly known for being picky about who he dated, and Emmeline knew they all thought she was an easy lay. Her bad reputation and the promise of three incredible days was all it had taken for her to wrap Alex around her finger.

For a while, anyway.

"Sorry, babe," Alex said, pushing her out of his lap. "I'm not in the mood for pedophilia."

"Pretend you are then," Emmeline simpered at him. She ran a hand down his thigh. "Besides, I've got some pretty convincing proof that says otherwise."

"Yeah, that's not for you," Alex said, looking away from her. "Don't you think you should get home - it's been three days already."

Emmeline said nothing. Instead, she followed his gaze to an attractive blonde at the bar in a midnight blue dress. It was true that she should get home. Becca would be crazy worried and Owen would miss her. Her dad couldn't care less what happened to her.

But now that the Purple Dragons were after her, she couldn't go back there. So she had spent the last three days curled up with Alex during the day and club hopping at night. Of course she hadn't actually slept with Alex - she had _some_ dignity. She just made out with him enough to make him think that she would. Eventually. And for that, Alex let her crash at his house while he was at school. It was more than obvious that Franklin was no longer a safe place for her to be anymore.

So, while Alex was at school, Emmeline spent the day deleting death threats from her former customers and smoking her worries away. It's not like she had anything to lose by killing all her brain cells, anyway.

"Whatever," she said, getting to her feet. "I'm getting a drink."

Emmeline wandered over to the bar and sat next to an underage Asian girl with a partially bleached bob. She waved the bartender over and ordered a Blue Hawaiian. Then she pulled her phone out, frowning.

Alex was right: It had been three days already. Her time had run out. So where was Hun?

She reached inside her messenger bag and curled her fingers around her the handle of her gun. It was the one thing she had stopped at home for. If the Dragons wanted to take her out, she wasn't going down without a fight.

"That your boyfriend?" the Asian girl asked, nodding at Alex.

Emmeline scoffed as the bartender set her drink down in front of her. "He wishes. He's just someone I like to play with."

The girl watched her down her drink. "Are you sure you should be drinking - no offense, but you kinda look like hell."

Emmeline scowled. "What are you - my designated driver?"

The girl grinned at her. "It's just that I would feel bad about beating up a drunk."

Emmeline froze, her spine going rigid. "Who the hell are you supposed to be - are you with the Dragons?"

"No, no," the girl said, getting to her feet. "I'm much worse."

As she stood, several figures clad in black, skin-tight suits and masks emerged from the crowd of dancers.

Emmeline stood, trying hard to hide her shock. "When did this turn into a Jet Li movie?"

The girl shook her head, laughing. "Actually, ninja are Japanese," she corrected Emmeline. "I'm guessing you don't have another canister for us?"

"I think you already know the answer to that," Emmeline told her.

"Then this is the part where you run," the girl smirked at her.

The girl snapped her fingers once and the ninja swarmed.

Emmeline pulled her gun out and shot once into the crowd. The dance floor erupted into panicked screaming, and the crowd surged all at once as everyone struggled to get to an emergency exit. Emmeline launched herself over the bar counter as two of the ninja lunged for her.

She knelt down behind the bar counter, using it as a shield. She shot at two of the ninja who were climbing over the bar to get to her. Then she quickly spun on her heel and shot at another, who was coming at her from behind.

The Asian girl with the bleached bob dropped down on her from the countertop, and kicked the gun out of Emmeline's hand. Then she reached inside her pocket and pulled out a lethal-looking kunai.

Emmeline kicked the girl, hitting her hard in the stomach, but as she did so the girl sank the kunai deep into the skin of her leg. Emmeline cried out loudly before she reached down and pulled the knife from her leg. Then she forced herself to her feet and threw herself at the girl, ready to attack.

* * *

It was an icy cold December night, and the clouds overhead promised the first snowfall of the season. Raphael jumped carelessly from the rooftop of one highriser to the next. This what was he loved to do, running along the roofs of the city like a shadow without a care in the world. He leapt from the roof silently.

"Hey, Raph!"

At the sound of his name, he pulled out of a back-flip and paused, landing on the fire escape of a vacant apartment building. He looked up to see Michelangelo gesturing him up to the roof where Leonardo and Donatello stood, talking.

"We're up here, bro," Mikey told him.

"Yeah, yeah," Raphael said, jumping up the steps of the fire escape and onto the roof.

They had used Donatello's mutagen radar to trace a canister of mutagen to Chelsea. Leo had also insisted on bringing the police scanner to see if it could help them pinpoint the area where someone might be dropping off the canister to the Purple Dragons. Mikey, on the other hand, was currently moonwalking to an MP3 he had downloaded to his T-phone.

Raphael walked over to the edge of the roof and stared down at the twinkling lights of the city. It still amazed him sometimes that they were fighting a war that no one really knew about. The Kraang invasion had been glossed over with a cover story about military weapon testing gone wrong. The Foot were so good at covering their tracks that whenever they happened across a police report about them, they were referred to only as "an obscure gang of masked criminals". And it was pretty rare that they ever _did_ come across a police report about them. The Dragons, on the other hand, saw so much screen time Raphael was amazed they had managed to go this long without being arrested. They must have had a damn good lawyer in order to avoid it.

Raphael sighed as his thoughts circled back to the Purple Dragons and that night one week ago - the night they had encountered Emmeline Harris. No one said anything about it, but he knew they were all surprised not to have gotten a call from her. They all knew what the Dragons were like, and there was no way they were gonna let her go unpunished. That was why Leo had forced them to give her their numbers to begin with.

Whatever happened to her, though, Raphael thought, she had brought it on herself. No one had told her to go into business with the Dragons. She had come up with that bright idea all on her own. Whatever happened to her, maybe she even deserved it.

"Wait, go back to that!"

Raphael looked up as Leonardo pulled him from his reverie. He turned to see him and Donnie, fiddling with the dial on the police scanner. A male voice spoke through the static:

"...A 10-40 at Club Ember. Suspects appear to be armed and dangerous, led by an Asian female…..Shots fired…Hostage situation…..Proceed with caution…."

Leo met Raphael's gaze. "Led by an Asian female?" he echoed.

Raphael scowled. "That's gotta be Karai," he said, confirming his brother's suspicion.

"But what are they doing at Club Ember?" Donatello asked.

"Having a vicious throw down with someone from the sounds of it," Michelangelo said, pulling out his earbuds and placing his hands on the back of his head.

Leo frowned, and turned away from them. "I don't know, but if they've taken someone hostage then it must be serious," he said, jumping off the roof.

Raphael didn't hesitate for a second. He pushed past his two younger brothers and followed after Leonardo. They both landed on the rooftop of a small corner market. They ran across it and leapt onto the rooftop of a nearby highriser.

"What about the Purple Dragons?" Donatello said, catching up with them. "And the canister?"

"For all we know, the Dragons could be delivering a canister to them right now," Leonardo said to him over his shoulder.

Raphael said nothing as he bounced off the awning of a barber shop and started up the fire escape of a small apartment building. As far as he was concerned, the Foot took precedence over the Purple Dragons, but he knew the _real_ reason why they were going after them. He knew that nothing he could say would change Leo's mind. Not when it came to Karai, anyway.

As bad as Donatello was when it came to April, Leonardo was even worse when Karai was involved. He knew that she couldn't be trusted, but he trusted her anyway. Raphael knew this was partially because Karai was actually Master Splinter's daughter, but it was also because love turned people into idiots. Whether or not Karai was related to their master didn't change the fact that she had been raised by the Shredder. Despite that, Leo refused to see reason when it came to her.

* * *

Raphael leapt onto the rooftop of the market that sat kitty-corner to Club Ember. The club was surrounded by a sea of people, and there were four cop cars stationed out front. A thin layer of police tape, kept the crowds from entering the club.

"That's a lot of people," Michelangelo said, staring down at the vast crowds.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Raphael said, shaking his head.

Without another word, he sighed and pulled one of Donnie's homemade smoke bombs from his belt. He threw it into the crowd of people. It went off almost instantly, covering them all with a thick black smoke that snaked it's way throughout the crowds, hiding them from the police coverage.

Raphael took a few steps backward. Then he took a running start and leapt onto the roof of the club. He landed with a dull _thud_. He pulled out of a somersault, and walked over to the ventilation stack. His brothers landed on the opposite end of the roof, and he waved them over silently.

Karai's voice bounced off the metallic walls, and echoed up to them through the stack.

* * *

Emmeline sat tied up to a metal folding chair. A thin trickle of blood ran down her face, and dribbled out of her mouth, staining her lips red. Her hair was matted thick with blood, and she felt like she probably had a couple of broken ribs. Her legs, which had been left exposed by her dangerously short minidress, were covered in long wounds that bled freely onto the club's kitchen floor. The Asian girl who had led the attack stood in front of her, wielding a katana.

"I'm gonna ask you again," the girl said with a sigh. "And this time if you don't tell me, I might have to kill you. We know the turtles. We know who they are and what they're like. We know they offered to help you." She gestured to herself and the black-clad army that stood gathered behind her. "That means they must have given you a way to contact them, and you are going to tell us what that is."

Emmeline laughed quietly and spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor at the girl's feet. She didn't know why she had deleted the turtles' numbers from her phone just before the ninja had managed to grab her. She didn't know why she hadn't called one of them in that split second window that had been allowed to her in the skirmish. When she had laid on the floor being pummeled beneath their feet, gasping for breath.

All she knew was that these people were bad. Maybe even worse than the Purple Dragons, somehow. And she didn't want to help them. So she refused to talk, and every time she failed to answer their questions that girl ran the blade of her sword across Emmeline's flesh.

"You're still not gonna tell us?" the girl asked. She crossed the room to where she sat tied up in the chair, and pressed the blade of the katana against the skin of Emmeline's throat. "I think even you're smart enough to know that slitting your throat would kill you pretty quickly. Change your mind yet?"

Emmeline opened her mouth to respond. To tell this girl that she didn't know how to get ahold of those damn turtles, and she could go burn in hell. But at that exact moment, the kitchen was filled with an almighty _bang_ as the grill from the air duct hanging overhead clattered to the floor.

Then Emmeline cried out loudly as four figures fell from the ceiling duct and landed expertly on the floor in front of her: The turtles.

Slowly, the leader - the one in the blue mask - rose from his kneeling stance, and unsheathed his twin katana.

"Leonardo," the girl smirked at him in greeting.

"This is over, Karai," Leonardo informed her. He turned to the turtle in the red mask - he was called Raphael, Emmeline remembered - and nodded. "We're taking the girl."

Raphael broke away from the others and then he paused when the blade of Karai's sword pressed against Emmeline's throat.

The blade sank deeper into Emmeline's flesh. "I'll kill her if you come near us," Karai told him.

Without a second of hesitation, Raphael pulled one of his sai from his belt and threw it at Karai. It hit her free hand, stabbing her in the palm and pinning her hand against the wall behind her. "The cops are outside," he reminded her. "This is not the time for your games."

One of the Foot ninja moved in the background to attack, but Karai raised the hand she used to hold the sword and gestured for him to halt. He did, and Karai burst out laughing. "Do you _know_ who this girl is?" she asked Leo. "Since when do you go around saving trash like her?"

Leonardo shook his head, and sighed, "If someone needs our help, then we _will_ help them. It doesn't matter who they are or what they've done in the past."

At this, the girl's smile faded. She sheathed her sword, and then she reached up and pulled the sai out of her hand. She threw it to the floor and started for the exit, but then she paused at Leonardo's side. "Take the girl," she said to him. "But it is probably a good thing you got here when you did. She was only seconds away from selling you all out."

No one responded, and with that, Karai and her ninja left trailing out of the kitchen exit and disappearing into the night.

Raphael crossed the kitchen to where Emmeline sat tied up. He knelt down and cut away the ropes that bound her hands together. She didn't move or give him any sign of thanks. She wasn't sure how the turtles had found her or how they knew this Karai girl, but one thing she definitely knew for sure was that she was now involved in something much bigger than she had ever imagined.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so I really don't feel like this was my best work, but hopefully you guys enjoyed it anyway.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I'm glad I've managed to keep you reading for this long. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

05

Emmeline watched the last of the ninja trail out of the club. Then she gripped the back of the chair they had tied her to, and pushed herself to her feet with a gasp. Then she cried out loudly as she immediately fell to the floor, crashing to her knees. The turtle in the purple mask rushed over to her.

He held out his hands as if to touch her, but hesitated like he was afraid she might break if he did. "You need a doctor," he said after a moment of strained silence.

"No," Emmeline said, shaking her head. "What I need is to get out of here." She stood up again, gripping the chair behind her for support.

The one in purple exchanged a look glance with the one called Leonardo. He shook his head, and sighed, "The cops might go easy on you, you know, if you tell them what -"

"All the cops are gonna do is throw me in a freaking jail cell," Emmeline cut him off with a scowl. "You think I didn't _try_ going to them - they aren't interested in helping me. They just want me off the streets."

"Whose fault is that?" Raphael said, crossing the room to the door that led back out into the club. He pushed it open slightly and looked outside. He heard footsteps.

Voices.

"Then why didn't you call one of us?" Leonardo asked her.

"It's your fault the Dragons sent these guys after me in the first place!" Emmeline shot at him. She opened her mouth to go on, but ended up choking on a mouthful of blood. She groaned loudly and sank back down into the chair.

"Hey, you guys," Raphael said, pulling away from the door as flashlights bounced off the darkened walls of the club outside the door. "Cops are coming." He turned to Leo. "We need to make a decision. Now."

Leonardo looked down at the turtle in purple. "Do you have what we need to treat her back at the lair?"

"Yeah," the purple-masked turtle responded, getting to his feet. "But we need to move her fast."

Leonardo turned to back to Emmeline. "Can you walk?" he asked her doubtfully.

Emmeline looked as though she might hit him. She could barely stand up, but there was no way she was letting any of them carry her. "I can walk fine," she said, forcing herself to her feet.

"Yeah, okay," Raphael scoffed under his breath.

"Alright," the one she thought was called Mikey said. "Let's get this show on the road." He held the back door open for them.

The door led to a small narrow alley where garbage was strewn about. Raphael stood silently, examining the ground in search of the manhole cover. Then he saw it, peeking out from beneath a dumpster.

"C'mon," he said to Mikey, gesturing to the dumpster.

Emmeline gaped as she watched them push the dumpster aside and pry open the manhole cover. "Wait, what?" she said as she watched them climb one by one down into the sewer.

Leonardo paused at the top of the ladder. "It's this or the cops," he reminded her.

Emmeline nodded and followed after him.

Leo watched her descend into the semi-darkness. "You know," he said, sounding a little reluctant. "You really should let one of us carry you. It's probably not the best idea to get greywater in those wounds."

"Not unless you want a staph infection," the one in purple added.

"I'm sorry," Emmeline said, jumping from the last rung of the ladder with a splash. "Are you my physician?"

"At the moment, yes," the purple-masked turtle said. "Name's Donatello, by the way."

"Michelangelo," the one in the orange mask chimed in.

"I'm Leonardo," Leo reminded her.

"And I'm Raphael," the one in red said at last.

Emmeline stared at his perfectly round, emerald green eyes. "Yeah," she said, looking away quickly. "You, I remember." She turned back to Leo before Raphael had a chance to respond and went on. "Who was that girl - that Karai?"

Leo didn't respond right away. Instead, he turned and started off down the sewer. "She is the daughter of our enemy," he said as he walked.

Emmeline nodded. She moved to follow after him, but cried out as a stabbing pain ran through her chest. She fell down on all fours, her hands splayed out in front of her as she coughed up yet more blood.

Donatello rushed over to her and exchanged a worried glance with Michelangelo.

"I knew she couldn't walk," Raphael said, shaking his head.

"Not the time, Raph," Donnie shot at him. He turned back to Mikey. "You carry her. We can't let anymore of this sewer water get in the cuts on her legs, and keep her head elevated." He ran through a list of concussion symptoms inside his head, and turned back to Emmeline. "Do you remember your name?"

"Of course I know my name," Emmeline said as Michelangelo walked over to her. For a moment, she looked as though she might object to being carried by him, but then thought better of it. She allowed him to pull her to feet and into his arms, bridal style. "My name is Emmeline Harris."

"And today's date?" Donatello asked her.

"December the eighth," Emmeline said, nodding, her words slurring together a little. She wasn't sure if it was from the blood loss or from the alcohol she'd had earlier. Black spots danced across her vision, and she began to wonder if she was dreaming.

She had been attacked by an army of ninja and was being carried through the sewers of New York by a giant, walking, talking turtle with a pair of nunchucks on his belt. She had to be dreaming. Maybe this whole bad week had been a dream, and the Dragons really weren't after her. Maybe she was about to wake up and go play video games with Owen on his iPad.

"Owen," she muttered and his face blossomed across her vision right before the world went black.

* * *

Raphael tried hard not to stare at Emmeline as she lay unconscious across one of the low, stone benches with a battered throw pillow beneath her head. Everyone had gone into overdrive after she had passed out in the sewers. They had ran back to the lair as quickly as their feet could carry them. Donnie had sewn her up with nylon sutures and stapled the wound at the back her head together as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Thankfully, none of her injuries were all that serious. It didn't seem like her broken ribs had punctured any organs, and the reason she kept spitting up blood was because she had, at some point, bitten her tongue hard enough to make it bleed. She had a mild concussion that had made her pass out, but as long as she remembered her name and stuff when she woke up, Donnie had said she should be fine. After he was done stitching her up, they had moved her from his lab to the pit where she now lay.

Raph had been the only one who didn't seem to care what happened next to her. As far he could tell, she wasn't about to drop dead any time soon and that was really all he cared about. It was hard not to be curious about Emmeline when she was like this, though.

Even though she was unconscious, she never stopped fighting. She tossed and turned relentlessly, and screamed at people that weren't there. She didn't look serene when she dreamed like Raph imagined most people did. Instead, she slept with a look of either pure rage or pure terror dancing across her features.

And as much as he believed that she had probably deserved what had happened to her earlier that night, Raphael had to wonder _what_ had happened to make her like this? Were all her dreams like this - or had they been triggered by Karai's attack on her?

"No…"

Raphael looked up at the sound of Emmeline's whimpering just in time to see her roll over onto her side. As she did so, her cell phone fell out of the pocket of her dress onto the floor with a clatter. Seeing it, Raphael thought back to that brief moment when he had been pressed against the walls of the air duct in Club Ember. He thought about how Karai had demanded information on them, and how Emmeline had simply remained silent.

He bent over and grabbed the phone off the floor. The screen had been cracked during the attack, but otherwise it seemed to work just fine. It did not ask for a password when he activated it, and he could only reason that was simply because Emmeline was probably crazy enough to shoot anyone that tried to go near it that wasn't her.

Then again, if she had known the Purple Dragons were after her carrying that gun around with her was probably the smartest thing she could have done, he reasoned. They couldn't be taken down with simple street fighting moves, and the Foot were an even stronger opponent. There was no way they were gonna be taken out by a single girl with a gun - let alone one as small and scrawny as Emmeline.

Raph frowned when the home screen blinked into view. The wallpaper was an image of Emmeline hugging a small, male toddler with black hair and blue eyes that mimicked her own. Raphael guessed that he was probably her brother as he clicked the Contacts button, ignoring the text messages that flashed in the corner of the screen.

He scrolled through the Contacts silently, and to his surprise he saw that he and his brothers were not listed. Even though he knew they had input the numbers to their T-phones a week earlier.

" _She was only seconds away from selling you all out."_

So then, Raphael thought placing the phone next to Emmeline's sleeping form, why hadn't she? Emmeline's life had been in very real danger when they had found her at the mercy of Karai and her sword. Why hadn't she told the Foot what she knew about them?

She had been out in the city, selling drugs and collecting canisters of mutagen for the Purple Dragons. And she wasn't entirely wrong about it being their fault. Even Raphael could admit that much. If they had never taken the first canister from her, there was a good chance that the Foot wouldn't have gone after Emmeline. So why hadn't she sold out him and his brothers out?

Where, exactly, did Emmeline Harris draw the line?

"Ah, so this is her."

Raphael turned to see Splinter walking over towards them. He nodded. "This is her. Snow White in the flesh."

Splinter stood over her, gripping his jade-infused staff tightly. He reached down and brushed a dark strand of hair away from her forehead. "I was right. She _is_ like you, Raphael."

Raph didn't try to hide the outrage that crept it's way into his voice. "How the hell do you figure that?"

"She is strong," Splinter smiled at him, choosing to ignore his outburst.

* * *

Emmeline wasn't sure what time it was when she woke up. The lights that shone down on her were blindingly bright, and her back ached from the too-firm bed she lay down on. She heard voices nearby. They were both familiar and not as though she had first heard them in a dream.

She sat up and the world around her spun. "Agh!" she cried out, griping her head as stars danced before her eyes.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Emmeline turned to see a giant turtle in a purple mask rushing over to her, looking worried. "Oh, god," she said, shaking her head. "You _are_ real."

"That was rude," said another turtle in an orange mask.

"Of course I'm real," the turtle in the purple mask said. "Why would you think I wasn't?"

"I was kind of hoping this whole thing was nightmare," Emmeline admitted. "Donatello, right?" she added, and then turned to his brother in the orange. "And you're Michelangelo?"

"And you are?" Donatello prompted her.

"Oh, my god," Emmeline said, annoyance creeping into her voice. "My name is Emmeline Harris. I'm seventeen years old. I live in Manhattan, New York. I have one older sister and a younger brother. We have a giant orange, douche-canoe for a president. Oh, and I'm in the sewers with four giant turtles because I was just attacked by an army of ninja. God," she moaned. "When did my life turn into a bad anime series?"

Donatello ticked off the things she said on his fingers as she said them. Then he shrugged and sighed, "She'll live."

"Where are we, anyway?" Emmeline asked, looking around at her strange new surroundings. It was then that she noticed she was actually laying on a stone bench, and not a bed like she had thought. No wonder her back hurt.

Michelangelo made a sweeping gesture, nearly hitting her in the face, and bowed low. "Welcome to Hotel de le Turtle," he said in a mock French accent.

"Abandoned subway terminal," Donatello said when she looked at him expectantly.

"Get up, Mikey - we don't gotta bow to her!"

They all turned to see Raphael and Leonardo walking over to them with what seemed to be a giant, humanoid rat trailing after them.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Leonardo smiled at her. He gestured to the rat. "This is Master Splinter. Our father."

Emmeline blinked up at him. "Seriously?" was all she could think to say in response.

And she'd thought her life had been fucked up before all of this.

Leo nodded and gave her a look as if daring her to say something else on the subject. "Seriously."

" _Hajimemashite,"_ Splinter said, bowing his head to her briefly. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Emmeline." He spoke in a thick accent and pronounced her name Ahh-may-reen.

"Sup?" Emmeline said to him blankly.

Splinter and Leonardo both sat down on the bench that sat directly opposite from hers while Raphael grabbed a beat up bean bag chair and pulled it as far away as from her as he could without being outside of the pit. Michelangelo and Donatello both sat on the bench beside hers.

"I am guessing you have questions for us," Splinter said.

"Does everyone we help have to know our whole life story?" Raphael asked stonily.

"It's because of you the Purple Dragons sent those guys after me in the first place!" Emmeline shot at him. "You owe me answers."

"Why didn't you just give them back the drug money?!" Raphael countered. "It's about the only thing you're good for."

"Oh, like I didn't try that," Emmeline said, rolling her eyes. "They weren't interested in money. They want a canister, and I can't even set foot in my own home -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Leonardo said, cutting her off. "Why can't you go back to your house?"

Emmeline looked at him like he was stupid. "Because then they might go after my family."

"I don't get it," Leo said. "They just got done punishing you. Why would they go after you or your family a second time?"

Emmeline sighed, shaking her head. "If you're enemies with the Dragons, then you should already know they like to make hell for the people they don't like. Besides, Hun has a special interest in me."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Donatello asked.

"Because I owe him money," Emmeline reminded him. "He's not just gonna let me go without paying it off."

"Well, you ain't staying here," Raphael said, getting to his feet and crossing his arms.

Leonardo turned to him, scowling. "That isn't for you to decide, Raph."

"What, you _want_ her to stay here?" Raphael said, looking at him. "I can already tell you she's lying about everything. Special interest?" he echoed, turning to her. "What, were you sleeping with him for coke?"

In an instant, Emmeline had jumped to her feet and crossed the room. She raised her hand to slap Raphael, but he caught it just before she hit him. She stared at him stunned.

He shook his head in disgust. "She's not even denying it."

"Let go of me!" Emmeline said, wrenching herself out of his grip. She pushed him hard, but he didn't move. "What the hell do you know - what does someone like you know about me? You think my life is so easy because I'm not a freak like you - it isn't! You don't know…" Her voice trailed off as hot, angry tears streamed down her cheeks, but still she tried again to get the words out. "You haven't seen what I've seen."

Raphael's mouth was in a thin, stern line. He didn't care that she was hurt or upset. All his earlier thoughts - all the what if scenarios about whatever she had been through were now out the window. They had saved her life, brought her into their home, and she had the nerve to lie to them. "We've seen things you can't even imagine, and I know enough from looking at you to know that not selling us out tonight was probably the only good thing you've done in years."

Emmeline nodded, sniffeling. "Yeah, and you hide behind your good deeds, so that you can act like an asshole to the people you can't and won't try to understand. What does that make you?" She turned, rubbing her eyes hard to Leonardo. "You got a bathroom around here?"

Leo pointed wordlessly to a hall off the pit.

She turned and stomped away, limping slightly, but said nothing about the pain.

Raphael turned and started for his room silently, but Splinter reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him.

"You go too far, my son," Splinter said, his voice low, stern, and it was all Raphael could do not to wince from the disappointment he heard in it.

He pulled out of his master's grasp and left.

* * *

A/N: Alright, I have no life and lots of free time, so I decided to upload another chapter this weekend. I hope you guys like it.  
Thanks again to Megmoo for your kind words. Your reviews mean a lot to me, and I hope you like this chapter because I had so much fun writing. Please, read and reveiw, everyone. I love reading all your thoughts and comments!  
Thank you! 3


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

06

Raphael stomped down the hallway that led to his bedroom. Then he paused and spun on his heel when he heard footsteps close behind him. It was Leo, following him.

"Oh, what?" Raphael said. "Has our great leader come to lecture me on the error of my ways?"

Leonardo stopped short a few feet in front of him. "You're damn right I have," he said, crossing his arms. "Do you think any of us like that she was out there selling drugs or whatever for the Purple Dragons?"

Raphael scowled, shaking his head. He was not in the mood for this. First, Splinter and now his jackass older brother. "Get to the point, Leo."

"My point is that Emmeline is not perfect," Leo told him. "And neither are you, in case you haven't noticed. No one is and you really need to stop taking your insecurities out on her."

Raph gaped at him. "Insecurities?" he echoed dumbfounded.

"Yeah, that's right," Leo said, nodding before Raph had a chance to say more. "You can't stand Emmeline because she's like you - her temper, her foul mouth, her bad decisions. And what you hate the most about her is that she flaunts all the traits that you hate about yourself. She has obviously been through a lot more than she's letting on -"

"And that makes what she's been doing okay?" Raphael demanded, cutting him off.

"I'm not saying that." Leo shook his head and locked eyes with his younger brother. "Wouldn't you do anything to forget about what you've gone through with Spike?"

Raphael opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out. "T-that is not the same thing," he finally managed. He couldn't believe Leo would even go there. Back to that day he had been trying so hard to forget.

"It kinda is, Raph," Leo said, frowning. "She's been through something that she's still recovering from, and she isn't dealing with it very well. And the same goes for you. You think that isolating everyone and beating on Mikey is just gonna make everything better, but it isn't going to help anyone - especially not you. I'm not saying everything is gonna get better if you become friends with Emmeline, but I don't think it could hurt if you got to know her and just _tried_ to understand what she's going through. I think you two could learn a lot from each other."

Then he turned and walked away, leaving Raphael alone with his thoughts.

Raphael sank to the floor and pulled his knees to his chest, leaning against the cool wall behind him. Heat flooded his veins as anger and sadness washed over him. He thought back to how Splinter kept saying how much like him Emmeline was. Had he been right?

Was he the only one who couldn't see that?

If that was true, did it mean that Raphael was just like her - was he just as bad a person as she was?

Or was it the other way around: Was she as a good person as he had always tried to be, and really was just lost on a dark path?

If so, then what had brought her to that path?

He needed to know, Raphael decided pushing himself to his feet.

* * *

Emmeline stood silently in the dark, dank abandoned unisex restroom that served as the sewer lair's bathroom. A dim bulb hung from the center of the ceiling, casting the room in an eerie sort of semi-darkness. A toilet stood surrounded by a pale yellow cubicle with a damaged lock on the door. Just beside the cubicle stood a single urinal, and the entire back wall was taken up by a large, cracked mirror beneath which stood a small, white sink with rust accumulating around the drain. Beside the door there was a small shelf made of up pipes and two-by-fours where there was some towels, a cup of toothbrushes, and a single cinnamon-scented candle burning in a sad attempt to cover up the smell of a bathroom shared by four teenage boys - er turtles.

Emmeline turned the water on the sink as hot as it would go. She waited until steam rose up and clouded the mirror with fog. Then she cupped some of the burning water in her hands, and washed away the blood that covered her face. When she was done, she turned and grabbed one of the towels off the shelf, and used it to scrub the blood from her legs. After that, she sank her head beneath the stream of water and washed out the blood that had matted her hair.

She straightened immediately when she heard the creaking sound of the door opening. When she reached up and wiped the steam away from the mirror, she saw Raphael standing in the doorway, reflected back at her.

Emmeline scowled. "What do you want?"

Raphael ignored her remark. "How far off the mark was I?" he asked, his voice laced with curiosity, sadness, anger and, to Emmeline's immense surprise, the hint of an apology all at once. He couldn't believe he was about to have this conversation, but what he found even harder believe was that some part of him _wanted_ to have this conversation.

"I would really rather not talk about this," Emmeline sighed. "Especially not with you."

Raphael frowned, disappointed in spite of himself. He started to walk towards her. Then he paused half-way across the room, suddenly conscious of his actions. He shook his head. "Look, I'm just trying to understand -"

"Understand what?" Emmeline asked, cutting him off.

"You!" Raphael said, gesturing to her, vaguely aware of the fact that his voice had risen almost to a shout. "You live in this fancy building in Manhattan - the nice part of Manhattan, dress like a model, drive around on some souped up motorcycle, and you're a drug dealer. It doesn't make sense…" His voice trailed off.

Emmeline turned to face him, crossing her arms. "Now you're interested in getting to know me. And why should I tell you anything? So you can -"

"All I'm trying to do is figure you out," Raphael told her. "I just want to see what they all see." He gestured to the doorway that led to the rest of the lair where his family was no doubt gathered somewhere.

Emmeline frowned, taking this into consideration. "And what do they see?" she asked him.

Raphael threw his hands up in frustration. "You know what?" he said, turning to leave. "No, no, I'm done here. I tried - I really, _really_ tried. At least I can say that much."

"There was nothing romantic about my relationship with Hun," Emmeline said suddenly as he pushed the door of the room open. "He wanted there to be…" Her voice trailed off as she fought with herself, trying to figure out how much to say. How much to leave out. She shook her head, not quite knowing how to put it into words.

Raphael let the silence hang between them, unsure if he wanted to hear more. It was not the answer he had expected, and the air was suddenly thick with the tension of unspoken words. He cleared his throat. "What does that mean?" he asked, uncertain if he really wanted an answer.

Emmeline tried to think of a quick-witted, smart remark, but this was not a subject she had ever spoken about before. Not even with her family. Her parents wouldn't let her and Vivika hated being reminded of it. She swallowed the lump in her throat and said in a voice that was barely a whisper, "He made my life hell. It was a war. I fought. He won. People got hurt. The end."

Raphael turned to look at her and was taken aback at the tears he saw streaming down her face. She dropped his gaze, looking deeply uncomfortable and angry. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her answer, but he could tell this was not an easy subject for her. Regret flooded his stomach when he realized that this was the second time he had made her cry in one day. As he looked away from her and pushed open the bathroom door, only one single horrible thought ran through his head - one that he wasn't sure he wanted answered:

What, exactly, had Hun done to this girl in front of him?

He wasn't sure, but whatever it was he now knew, it had been bad. For the first time, he thought, Emmeline truly looked her age and, for the first time, he saw the fear in her eyes when she mentioned Hun's name. The fear that she had so obviously, he saw, been trying to hide.

Raphael stood illuminated in the doorway, now unable to meet her gaze. "You should check your phone," he told her. "People are worried about you."

Emmeline watched him go and then sank to her knees. She brought her fist to her mouth and bit down hard to muffle the sob that had escaped from her lips. All she could think was that, finally, someone had listened.

* * *

When Emmeline eventually emerged from the bathroom and returned to the pit, her eyes were red-rimmed, and swollen, the dark shadows beneath them no longer hidden by free flowing blood. She paused just outside the pit, surprised to see that there were now two more humans present: One was a lanky red-haired girl and the other was a tall, pale boy dressed in all black. They all turned to look at Emmeline at once.

Then the girl jumped to her feet, and rushed over to her. "Oh, no," she said. "What did Raph say?"

Leonardo sighed and shook his head. "So much for getting through to him…" His voice trailed off.

"No, no," Emmeline said quickly. "He was fine - I mean, for once, he wasn't a total douche." She turned to the red-haired girl. "Sorry but who are you?"

Within a matter of seconds, Donatello appeared at the girl's side and said, "Emmeline Harris, this is April O'Neil." He gestured to the boy and added, "And that is Casey Jones."

"Oh, cool," Emmeline said, walking over to one of the benches and sitting down. "So how many people know about you guys?"

"Well," Michelangelo said. "There's you, these two, April's dad, that one weird kid, and everyone in the Foot -"

"Wait, wait, wait," Emmeline said with raised eyebrows. "The Foot?"

"We know," April said, sitting down beside her. "It sounds like a funky club for podiatrists."

"They are, actually, a very powerful group of ninja," Leonardo told her. "They're the ones who attacked you earlier tonight."

Emmeline nodded as she started to piece things together. "They came after me because I couldn't get another canister of that stuff to the Dragons. So they were the ones the Dragons were trying to sell that stuff to?" she looked to the others confirmation.

"New girl catches on fast," Casey said, laughing.

"I don't understand," Emmeline said. "Why does everyone want those canisters so badly - what are they?"

"That's because the canisters hold a very powerful, very dangerous alien mutagen," Donatello explained.

Emmeline stared at him. "Mutagen?"

"It's, uh, the stuff that made us what we are," Leonardo said, looking mildly uncomfortable. "This is what we were trying to tell you earlier with Master Splinter before Raph had his little temper tantrum."

"Wait," Emmeline said, looking at him. "So you guys weren't always like this?"

"At one point," Donatello said, "we were just ordinary turtles and Master Splinter was an ordinary human."

"What happened?" Emmeline asked.

"The Kraang infiltrated human society, and a canister of the mutagen got loose on the day Splinter was bringing us home from the pet store."

They all looked up to see Raphael walking towards them. He sat down beside Michelangelo and went on, "Just before it broke open, a rat ran across his foot, and then both us and Splinter got splattered with the mutagen."

"And here we are," Mikey finished for him.

Emmeline looked from Raphael to the group around her, and back again. She seemed more confused than ever. "What are the Kraang?"

"A group of aliens from another dimension," April told her. "They're the ones that created the mutagen to experiment with on other life forms."

"Weirded out yet?" Casey asked Emmeline with a grin.

"So the Purple Dragons, the Foot, and the Kraang," Emmeline said, ticking the names off on her fingers. "All these people want the mutagen?"

Leonardo nodded. "So they can make an army of mutants just like us."

"Only worse," Raphael added. He gestured to himself and then to the others. "See, we're the good guys in all of this."

Emmeline turned back to Leonardo. "But you said that Karai girl was the daughter of your enemy - does that mean her parents are the leaders of the Foot?"

"Ding, ding, ding," Michelangelo said. "And they're every bit as charming as she is, trust me."

Leonardo took a deep breath and said, "Karai's father is a man called the Shredder. His real name is Oroku Saki. He knew Splinter back when he was a human, and they both lived in Japan, but he came here to hunt Splinter down after he found out he was in New York."

Emmeline sighed and ran a hand through her dark, damp hair. "And Hun was working for these guys this whole time," she concluded quietly. "This is bad." A sense of dread washed over her as she remembered what Raphael had said to her earlier and started looking around the pit. "Have you guys seen my phone?"

April bent down and picked up a smart phone with a cracked screen in a silver case. "Is this it?" she said, handing it to her.

"Yeah, thanks," Emmeline said, taking it from her.

She tapped the Messages icon and started scrolling through her texts. Most of them were death threats from her former customers. Then, finally, she got to the texts at the very bottom of the screen. She had twenty-nine missed texts from Becca, asking where she was, telling her that Owen was worried about her and missed her. Emmeline's mouth fell open when she saw that the next couple of text messages were from her sister, Vivika, telling her that she was coming home and that their mother would be there, waiting for her. Then she scowled when came across the very last text message.

I know you're with them, and I'm coming. -H.

"This is bad," Emmeline said, getting to her feet. "This is very bad - can they trace this phone?" she asked, turning to Donatello.

Donatello exchanged a worried glance with Leonardo, looking slightly clueless. "Who are you talking about?" he asked her.

Emmeline thrust the phone at him wordlessly, and crossed her arms as the others gathered around it in curious silence.

"I'm coming," Raphael read aloud. "H?" He looked up at her. "Is that Hun?"

"Well, it ain't Santa Claus," Emmeline shot at him.

"Son of -!" Raphael said, snatching the phone out of Donatello's hands. He threw it on the floor and quickly proceeded to stamp it into little pieces.

Emmeline stared at him in shocked horror. "What are you doing?!" she demanded. "How the hell am I supposed to reach my family?"

"No, he's doing the right thing," Leonardo said before his brother could respond. "You can get a new phone - a T-phone. You know your family's numbers, right?"

"Well, yeah," Emmeline sighed. "What the hell is a T-phone?"

April reached inside her pocket and pulled out a small, green, turtle shell-shaped phone. It was one of the weird, homemade phones Emmeline had seen on the first night she had encountered the turtles. "This is a T-phone," April told her. "We all have one."

"They operate on an encrypted network," Donatello chimed in. "We're the only ones who have access to it, so it's totally untraceable. Like a burner phone. The only way Hun's getting the number is if you give it to him." He walked across the lair, and opened the garage door that led to his laboratory. Then he went over to his desk, and started rummaging through the drawers for an extra T-phone.

Emmeline shook her head. "I can't just stand here," she said. "I need to get back to the club - back to my house. I need to get back my gun and my bike now - _like right now._ " Her breath was coming out in short, jagged bursts. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

Raphael stared at her, shocked to see her in such a panicked state. "You think he's gonna go after your family?" he asked her, putting two and two together.

"But he said that he knows you're with us," Leonardo said, looking from Raphael to Emmeline and back again. "He could be coming here."

"He's gonna have a pretty hard time tracing that phone this far underground," Donatello said, walking back over to them. He pressed a T-phone into Emmeline's hand.

"Which means I need to get back home now!" Emmeline said, running her hands through her hair. "And I definitely need my gun."

"Your gun was probably confiscated by the police," Leonardo told her grimly.

"And, besides," Raphael said. "You live in that fancy building - can't your family handle themselves?"

Emmeline looked at up like he was stupid. "Against _armed_ gang members?" she shot at him. "And if it's just Becca and Owen, she's useless in a fight. I don't think she's ever even been in one before, and Vivika -"

Before she could finish her sentence, Raphael had walked over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook her sharply, shocking her into silence. "You need to calm the hell down," he told her firmly. "You're talking too fast, and we can't understand. There's always the chance that Hun is bluffing. He could just be trying to scare you out of hiding."

"Well, it worked!" Emmeline said, pulling out of his grasp. "I need to go." She turned and started towards the steps that led to the exit of the lair where the Shellraiser was stowed.

"You can't go out there by yourself," Leonardo called after her. "You don't know your way around down here."

"And you lost a lot of blood tonight," Donatello reminded her. "There's always the chance you could pass out again if you move around too much."

Emmeline paused at the foot of the stairs. "That's a risk I'm willing to take," she sighed. "I can't let him anywhere near my family." Her fist closed tightly around the T-phone that Donatello had given her, crushing it against her skin.

"Then one of us is going with you," Leonardo said, his voice stern, daring her to question this decision. He turned to Raphael. "You know where she lives, right?"

Raphael scowled. He wasn't sure if he liked the idea of being trapped in the sewers with a panicked, blubbering Emmeline - he didn't like her even when she wasn't acting like this. Looking at her, though, he couldn't bring himself to ignore the desperate helplessness and pure, unadulterated fear that filled her eyes. He turned back to Leo. "I'll take her, but I ain't making any pit stops along the way."

"Where'd you say your bike is?" Casey chimed in suddenly. "I can go pick it up and bring it back here. I know how to ride," he added when he saw the look on Emmeline's face.

She reached inside the pocket of her dress, and tossed him the keys. "Don't scratch it," she instructed him. Then she turned and started up the stairs. "I'm getting out of here."

* * *

Raphael and Emmeline walked through the sewers in an uncomfortable silence. He tried not to think too much about what she had told him earlier. The more he thought about it, the more questions he had and he was certain that he wasn't about to get any answers.

Emmeline walked beside him on the narrow ledge that ran along the wall in an attempt to keep the greywater out of her the stitches on her legs. The wounds ached and throbbed dully, but so far, she was still able to walk without feeling like she might pass out again. Her panic had evaporated some, but she still half-jogged ahead of Raphael, desperate to make it to her house before Hun did. After about twenty minutes or so of silence, she sighed and said begrudgingly, "Thanks for doing this."

Raphael scoffed. "It's no big deal. I'm just the only one who knows where your house is."

Emmeline cast him a dark look. "Yeah, how is that, by the way?"

"Hey, I was just following orders," Raphael shot at her defensively. "Leo likes to keep tabs on the people we help."

"I thought you guys were ninjas," Emmeline sneered at him. "Not stalkers."

"Like I said," Raphael said. "Not my idea."

He came to a halt beneath a sewer grate to peer up at a barely visible street sign. Snow drifted down between the bars, illuminated by the dull light of the moon. He stepped onto the sewer ledge, and pried the bars open. "We should be near your house," he told Emmeline. "You got your T-phone?"

"Yeah, why?" Emmeline asked, pulling the device out of her pocket and handing it to him.

Raphael put his number in the phone and then thrust it back at her. "Don't delete it this time, no matter who finds you," he instructed her. "I'll let you know when Casey brings your bike back down to the lair." He watched as she attempted to hoist herself out of the sewer. "Call us," he added. "If you run into Hun."

"Well, I sure as hell ain't gonna call the police," Emmeline said, pulling herself up and out of the sewer. "Thanks for not being a total asshole this time," she added to him over her shoulder.

Raphael turned and started back down through the wet, murky sewer corridor. "Whatever."

* * *

According to the T-phone, it was just past three-thirty in the morning when Emmeline closed the front door of her family's loft. She paused in the doorway when she saw the people clustered together in the living room, talking quietly. They immediately fell silent when she entered the room. Their mouths fell open as they took in her appearance.

Emmeline knew she looked like hell - her legs were all cut up, her black minidress had been soaked with sewer water, and she didn't want to think about what her hair must look like. "Hey, guys," she greeted them, smiling weakly.

Her father, Cedric, who had been standing in front of the window overlooking the harbor with his back to her, turned to face her. He was tall, pale, and blonde. The only trait he shared with Emmeline were her eyes, which were round and blue like his own. Emmeline's sister, Vivika, who looked more like her father with long, dirty-blonde hair and their mother's black, almond-shaped eyes was also there as was their mother, who was the only member of their family that looked remotely Asian.

Vivika looked at her in stunned silence while their mother Lianna stifled a gasp, pressing her fist against her mouth. It was the first time Emmeline had seen her mother at home in almost a month.

Not knowing what else to say, Emmeline asked, "Where are Becca and Owen?"

"Where the hell do you think they are?" Lianna shot at her. "They're in bed, where you should be!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Emmeline laughed humorlessly, looking at her. "I wasn't aware you were still a member of this family. I see you're taking a break from fucking your students."

Within an instant, Cedric had crossed the room to where Emmeline stood. He reared back and slapped her hard across the face, causing her to bite her lip so hard a thin trickle of blood flowed down her chin. "You don't get to talk to her that way after what you've put our family through," he spat at her.

Emmeline shook her head, laughing quietly because, of course as always, everything that went wrong in this household was _her_ fault.

"Where were you?" Vivika asked, getting to her feet and walking over to her. "Owen's been asking about you -"

"He barely knows me," Emmeline reminded her, pushing past her and sitting down on the sectional sofa.

Lianna rose from her seat and scowled down at her. "And whose fault is that?" she asked, echoing Raphael's words from earlier in the evening.

"Uh, yours, actually," Emmeline said, returning her steely gaze. "Since I'm such a bad influence -"

"Look at you!" Lianna screeched at her. "What about this situation makes you think you could possibly be anything but a bad influence on your brother!?"

"Oh, it's not like he knows who you are, either!" Emmeline spat. "Becca is the closest thing he's got to a parent around here - let's not all act like either of you two are _actual_ parents."

Lianna scoffed, turning away from her.

"Just where the hell have you been, anyway?" Cedric demanded, ignoring her previous remarks as he walked over to her.

"I've been staying with friends," Emmeline informed him. "I got my ass handed to me, in case you hadn't noticed -"

"Oh, let me guess," Lianna said, turning back to her. "Your little boyfriend finally managed to hunt you down again -"

"He is _not_ my boyfriend!" Emmeline said, cutting her off. "I keep telling you and telling you! Even Vivika has told you -"

"I told you to keep me out of this," Vivika said, swooping down on her, scowling darkly. "You know I hate thinking about _that day_ let alone hearing about it."

"Oh, right," Emmeline scoffed. "Because God forbid a single unpleasant thought should enter your pretty, little head."

"I am on medication because of you," Vivika shot at her. "Does that mean nothing to you?"

Emmeline jumped to her feet. "Do you know what I would give to be on that medication or just to see the inside of a therapist's office - anything to make the nightmares go away!?"

"Oh, don't pretend you didn't enjoy yourself," Lianna intervened with a sneer. "It's because of you that our marriage is in shambles!" She gestured from herself to Cedric, and back again.

"Right," Emmeline said, nodding knowingly. "Because I'm the one who told you to fuck the intern."

"You little-" Lianna said, throwing herself at her, but Vivika grabbed her sharply by the wrists, pinning her arms behind her and pulling her away from her youngest daughter.

"That is enough!" Cedric roared, pulling Vivika away from her mother. He pushed his wife away so hard that she stumbled backwards a few feet before she came to a rest. He turned to face Emmeline. "You are no longer welcome in this household - we have had it with your nonsense." He jabbed her sharply in the chest. "We are done paying for your school, and we are done with having you in our home. As of today, you are no longer a member of this family!"

Emmeline stared at him, trying to force some sort sound to come out. "But Owen -" she finally managed.

"Will be better off without you," Cedric finished for her.

Vivika shook her head and said, "You're coming home with me tonight. I'll take you to the Department of Social Services after it opens later on." She sighed heavily. "After that, you're on your own."

Emmeline looked from one member of her family to the next. "When I have _not_ been on my own?!" she demanded, unable to hide her outrage. "I have been fending for myself since I was fourteen. I've had to pay my own medical bills -"

"You know damn well you brought that on yourself," Lianna cut her off.

"This is not up for discussion," Cedric said before Emmeline had a chance to respond. "It has already been decided." He turned to her. "You have ten minutes to pack your bags and get out. That's it."

Emmeline scowled up at him. "I have put myself through hell, trying to keep you people safe," she told him. "Now, I'm sorry I ever even bothered. Have a nice, fucking life."

She turned and stomped off down the hallway that led to her room, knowing it would be the last time she would ever see it.

* * *

A/N: Alright, guys, I have driven myself crazy trying to get this chapter absolutely right. So I really, really hope you guys like it because this was actually very difficult for me to write, and I rarely say that about my writing.

Special thanks goes out to Megmoo, TheUnknownLady, and all the guests have who read and reviewed this story so far. I love reading your guys' comments and they mean so much to me, believe me. Please, keep reading and reviewing. I am always curious to know what my readers' thoughts are about my work, so I always love reading them. Please, keep that in mind.

Thanks again, guys, and I hope you loved the new chapter! :D


	7. Christmas Special

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

07: Xmas Special

Emmeline followed her older sister, Vivika, down the hallway that led to the elevator. She punched the Down button and the two of them waited in silence. Emmeline adjusted the strap on her duffel bag, and made a mental note to pick up her messenger bag and jacket from Alex Matthews' house at some point. She wondered vaguely if he would let her stay with him again if she actually _did_ sleep with him. The thought made her cringe internally.

The doors of the elevator opened, and Emmeline stepped inside silently.

"This really is for the best, you know," Vivika said, pushing the button for the lobby. She fiddled with the strap on her purse uncomfortably as she spoke. "It is what's best for Owen."

Emmeline scoffed, unable to think of an actual response that didn't involve some combination of the words "fuck" and "off".

"Emme," Vivika sighed, rolling her eyes. "I know you want to be in his life, but Mom and Dad are right. You're in a bad place right now -"

Emmeline scowled, cutting her off, "I did what I had to do in order to survive. You wouldn't know what that's like."

"And neither would you if you didn't keep getting involved with garbage," Vivika countered as the doors of the elevator slid open.

The doors were halfway open before Emmeline noticed a tall, familiar frame with jet-black hair, clad in a pair of sunglasses. Without a second's hesitation, Vivika had pulled out a huge, black Taser that was humming with electricity.

"Son of a bitch!" Hun cried out as she pulled the trigger on the weapon, launching the electrodes. They immediately attached themselves to the bare skin of his exposed neck. Then he dropped to the ground, convulsing uncontrollably as though he were having a fit.

Before she even had a chance to think about it, Emmeline threw herself at him. She kicked him hard anywhere she could reach him until his glasses broke in two with a sickening _crunch_ sound. "I told you to stay the hell away from my family!" she screamed at him in between blows.

Then Hun reached out and caught her leg in his hand. He yanked on her hard, so that she fell to the floor. Then he angled himself above her, grinning and gasping for breath. "Aww, Snow," he cooed at her. "Just like old times - you know how much I like a fighter."

Emmeline rolled onto her hands and knees. Then she elbowed him hard in the face. "Run!" she screamed at Vivika, who stood in the elevator doorway looking terrified.

Hun reached out for her again, blood flowing freely from his nose, but Emmeline kicked out of his grasp. Then she pushed herself to her feet and tore through the lobby as fast as she could go. She pulled out her T-phone as she burst through the front doors of the building out onto the street, which was dusted with newly fallen snow.

"Yeah, what?" Raphael greeted her.

Emmeline glanced over her shoulder just in time to see her sister, running down the street in the exact opposite direction. "Just ran into Hun," she said, panting heavily into the phone. "Almost literally."

"Where is he now?" Raphael asked, his tone suddenly urgent.

"Hopefully bleeding to death in the lobby of my parents' apartment building," Emmeline said, rounding the street corner that led to the nearest subway terminal. She took the steps two at a time, checking over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't being followed.

Then again, if someone from the Purple Dragons or - God forbid - the Foot were following her, they'd probably be smart enough to stay out of sight.

"Where are you?" Raphael asked as she began rummaging through her duffel bag for her wallet.

She pulled her MetroCard out and swiped it at the turnstile. "On the first train away from him," she muttered as the Go icon appeared on the turnstile. "I was supposed to stay at my sister's house tonight, but I can't risk going to her place if someone is following me."

Raphael sounded confused when he spoke next. "Why were you going to her house in the first place?"

Emmeline paused beside the subway map to check when the next train would leave. It was 4 AM. The next train would leave in half an hour.

"Hello?" Raphael prompted her when she didn't answer right away.

"My parents threw me out, okay?" Emmeline snapped, scowling. She paced up and down the platform nervously. The station was practically empty at this hour, except for a couple of early morning commuters. "Do you think I'd be lucky enough to get hit by a train if I started walking down this tunnel right now?"

"Hold up a minute," Raphael said, now sounding more confused than ever. "Why, exactly, did your parents throw you out?"

Emmeline sighed and collapsed onto one of the benches that lined the subway platform. She noticed a nerdy-looking college student eying the stitched up wounds on her legs and scowled at him. "Got a problem?" she shot at him, and he quickly looked away. "Sorry," she added into the phone. "Anyway, it was probably because life is hard and they're crappy people who suck at being parents and I fucked up because I'm a bad kid, so they threw me out."

Raphael was silent for a moment as if uncertain about how to respond. "Well, that explains everything then, doesn't it?" he said finally. She heard voices in the background and then he added, "Leo wants to talk to you."

"Emmeline?" Leonardo said before she had a chance to respond.

"Don't you people ever sleep?" Emmeline said, annoyance creeping into her voice. She stared down the platform, looking for signs of the Purple Dragons or potential ninja, but the small gathering of people looked surprisingly normal given the circumstances.

"You're one to talk," Leo shot at her. "Where are you?"

"Subway," Emmeline said simply. "The one near what used to be my house."

"I see," Leonardo said, although he sounded like he didn't at all. "Where are you planning on sleeping tonight?"

Emmeline frowned. She had not actually considered this. "No clue," she admitted. "On the train, probably. In the morning, I'll double back and hit up the Department of Social Services and see if they can set me up with a homeless shelter or something."

"But those places have waiting lists," Leo reminded her gently. "Most people who have been homeless longer than you have never seen the inside of a shelter."

She turned her gaze to the blood-soaked flats that covered her feet, considering this. "Maybe I'll turn myself in then," she said at last. "Jail has to be better than being homeless, right?"

"Look," Leonardo sighed. "Why don't you focus on putting as much distance between you and Hun as possible - we'll figure out the rest."

"I don't need you to do that," Emmeline said quickly. The turtles had saved her life once already - they had done enough.

"Yes, you do," Leo told her sternly. "You're homeless now and you need a place to sleep. Let us take care of it."

Emmeline frowned hesitantly. "But -" she said, starting to object.

Leo cut her off assuredly. "We want to - just think of it as an early Christmas present."

"Christmas?" Emmeline echoed as she saw the bright light of the subway appear at the very end of the track. "Oh, yeah," she said, suddenly remembering the date. "That'll be happening soon, won't it?"

She didn't catch whatever Leonardo said next, even though she could clearly Raphael's annoyingly loud objections in the background. The other sounds were drowned out by the thought that she was, once again, helpless and this time she didn't even have Owen to give her a reason to keep going.

This time, she had nothing.

* * *

"She's not gonna be staying here, is she?" Raphael demanded as Leonardo hung up his phone call with Emmeline.

He and the others stood gathered in the pit while they waited with bated breath for a response.

Leonardo shook his head. "Actually," he said. "I had another idea in mind." He turned to April hesitantly.

Now, it was Donatello's turn to object. "No," he said, shaking his head and jumping in between Leonardo and April. "No, no, no - that girl is dangerous, Leo. Her friends are dangerous. She isn't safe for April to be around."

"To be fair," Leonardo said thoughtfully. "Neither are we - I mean, the Foot never would have gone after April if it weren't for us."

"Yeah," April said, crossing her arms across her chest. She scowled at Donnie. "And since when do _you_ get to decide who I hang out with?"

Heat immediately flooded Donnie's cheeks as he struggled to come up with an appropriate response. "B-b-but you barely know her!" he managed finally.

April raised her eyebrows at him. "So?" she said. "You guys don't know her all too well either, and you still brought her down here." She gestured to the sewer lair.

"Point, April," Raphael deadpanned from his place in the pit.

Donatello scowled at him before turning his attention back to April. " _We are ninja_ ," he reminded her, gesturing to himself and his brothers. "And there are four of us - five if you count Splinter. We can handle one 90 pound girl with a gun."

"And I am a kunoichi," April told him, smirking.

"In training," Raphael chimed in. He turned to Leo. "Why are we even trying to help her - her parents probably had a good reason for kicking her to the streets. I mean, it's not like she has a clean rap sheet or anything, and Donnie's right - she is dangerous."

"Yeah," Leonardo said. "And so are we, but you guys saw the way she jumped into action when it came to her family. Emmeline is capable of being a good person - she's just never had the motivation to be one before now."

"So we're just supposed to help every poor kid with a sob story that comes our way?" Donatello demanded. "Even if it means putting our friends in danger?"

Leo turned to April. "Are you okay with putting yourself at risk to help Emmeline?" he asked her.

April smiled at him. "Of course I am," she said. "It's the right thing to do, and I know that if I explain things to my aunt, she'll definitely let her stay."

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Raphael said dismissively.

"Raph," Leo said, looking at him. "You had the chance to talk to her in private today, right?"

Raph's spine immediately went rigid at the mention of his conversation with Emmeline. "How'd you know about that?" he asked his brother.

Leonardo sighed, rolling his eyes. "Splinter saw you, okay, and then told me," he said. "Never mind how I knew - did you talk to her?"

Raphael nodded. "Yeah."

"And how did she seem to you?" Leonardo asked him.

Raphael thought back to his conversation with Emmeline in the bathroom. To the fear in her eyes and her unwillingness to share her past with him. Something had happened to her to make her who she was today. She didn't just wake up one morning and decide to start an exciting new career as a drug dealer. He saw that now.

He shook his head, trying to clear the image of her tear-streaked cheeks from his mind. His thoughts drifted back to the first night they had encountered Emmeline and what Splinter had said about her. "She seemed…" His voice trailed off as he searched for the right words. "Lost," he finished finally. "And afraid. I don't think that girl trusts anyone," he added, shaking his head again.

"Most parents would have filed a miss persons report if their kid disappeared for the night," April reminded him. "Hers threw her out on the streets."

"Yeah," Michelangelo said, wandering over from the kitchen while gnawing on a slice of cheese pizza. "And she doesn't seem like the kind of girl who has a lot of friends. You know, not one of the in-crowd."

"That's because she's not nice," Donatello said, not bothering to hide his annoyance at his brothers' willingness to put April at risk. "Or friendly."

"Well, maybe, we could change that," Leonardo told them. "Maybe we could show her how to be a better person, and live a good life - all it takes is one good person, you guys."

Raphael frowned, considering this. Then another thought entered his head unbiddenly. "But what if," he said hesitantly, choosing his words carefully. "What if she doesn't _want_ to be a good person?"

Leonardo frowned at him. "Do you, honestly, believe that?"

Raph didn't respond - he didn't want to believe it. As much as he couldn't stand her, some part of him wanted to believe what his brother was telling him - that Emmeline was really a good person deep inside. But he knew that was the stuff of Hallmark movies and Christmas specials, and real life didn't work that way. In the end, he didn't know what to think.

"Look," April said when he didn't respond. "I'm gonna ask Emmeline to stay at my house whether you guys like or not." She turned to Donatello. "So you can activate the tracker in her T-phone, and help me find her or else you can stay here while I go look for her on my own. It's her Christmas present, remember?" she added, reciting what Leonardo had said to Emmeline on the phone only moments ago.

Mikey nodded enthusiastically, grinning. "Tis the season for tidings of kindness and joy while jolie ol' Saint Nicholas watches over us, and brings presents to the all good girls and boys."

"First of all," Raphael said, looking as though he might actually throw up from all the forced cheer and merriment. "We are turtles, and second of all, we aren't even religious."

"That's never stopped us from celebrating any other year," Leonardo reminded him, smiling.

"And, besides," April told him. "My family is religious - mostly, my aunt, though."

Raphael pressed his palm against his forehead and suppressed a groan.

"Fine!" Donatello exploded, throwing his arms up in frustration. "Fine - tis the freaking season! So let's do something special, and help Emmeline Harris. Let's take her to April's house, and let everyone who wants to hunt her down and kill her in her sleep follow her to April's doorstep in honor of Christmas spirit!"

"That's the spirit," April laughed, clapping him on the back. "Don't worry so much. It'll be fine."

"And if things get dangerous, you two can always hide out down here until everything blows over," Leonardo reminded her.

Donatello said nothing. Instead, he turned and stomped off to his lab to begin the process of tapping into the tracker on Emmeline's T-phone.

Raphael watched him go, and was surprised to find himself hoping that Leo turned to out be right. For once.

* * *

The first train Emmeline took brought her to Chambers and Broadway. From there, she caught a bus into the East Village. She wasn't sure if she was being followed or not, but if she was, she didn't want to make it too easy for them. When she took her seat at the very back of the bus, her T-phone went off.

"Hello?" she said, trying to ignore any weird looks the odd, little cell phone got her.

"Get off the bus in Alphabet City," Raphael instructed her. "Then meet April in the northern part of Tompkins Square Park."

"Got it," Emmeline said simply, and hung up the phone.

She rode the bus to Avenue B and then got off. Then she cut through the park until she got to East 10th Street where she found April waiting at a bus stop. By then, the snow had finally stopped falling, but April was dressed warmly in a thick, yellow puffer coat.

Emmeline adjusted her duffel bag. "Where are the others?" she asked.

"They're around," April told her, smiling. "Don't worry." Then she turned and started to walk away.

Emmeline stood for a moment, unsure if she actually wanted to go through this. Then she followed after the strange redhead, trailing a few feet behind her. "So where are we going?" she asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them.

"My house," April said, looking at her over her shoulder. "You can stay with me until you get things figured out."

Emmeline came an abrupt halt. "Are you sure you really wanna do that?" she said, unable to keep an uneasy tone out of her voice.

April smiled at her. "Of course," she said, nodding. "And, don't worry, I can take care of myself. I just have to let my aunt know…" Her voice trailed off as she continued walking.

"Thanks," Emmeline said, catching up with her. "Like, I mean, really thank you, April."

"It's no big deal," April assured her.

"So," Emmeline said in an attempt to ease the awkward atmosphere. "You live with your aunt, huh?"

April frowned. "No," she said. "I live on my own, actually, but my aunt is my legal guardian right now. There was an accident with the mutagen, and my dad got turned into a mutant."

"Oh, my god," Emmeline gasped in shocked surprise. "I'm so sorry. Is he alright - I mean, I don't even -"

"It's fine," April said a little too quickly. "We aren't really sure where he is right now, but Donnie's been working on a retromutagen. That way we can fix him whenever we find him again." She smiled a strained, hopeful smile.

Emmeline nodded, uncertain how to respond. It was definitely not the time for a clever and witty comeback.

The two them walked in silence for about ten minutes until they finally came to a shabby-looking low-riser with a sign that deemed it the Second Time About Antiques Store.

"You live in an antique store?" Emmeline asked, following April around to a side door.

"Above, actually," April said, pulling out her keys and unlocking the door. "I'll get you your own key by the end of the week." She pulled open the door which led to a narrow staircase in a cramped hallway.

Emmeline paused on the foot of the stairs. "You don't have to do that," she muttered quietly.

April smiled at her. "I want to - besides, you'll need one if you're going to be living here," she reminded her. "Hey, Donnie," she added when she reached the landing at the top of the stairs.

Emmeline followed her up the stairs and then paused when she got to the landing at the top where she saw that Donatello was, indeed, kneeled over in front of the door of the apartment. He was wearing a pair of thick goggles, and had brought a heavy-looking toolbox with him that seemed to harbor many unusual tools Emmeline had never seen outside of woodshop. He had pulled the electric panelling of the doorbell off, and was fiddling with a colorful bunch of wires that dangled from the panel like streamers.

"And what are you doing?" Emmeline asked, kneeling down so that she was level with the panelling.

Donatello pulled a pair of wire cutters from his tool box, and started clipping various wires. "Configuring an alarm system," he said as he worked. "You know, since you never know when Hun or his lackies might show up, and try to murder you in your sleep."

Emmeline straightened up with a frown. "You have an army of evil ninja and an alien race conspiring against you, and it _just now_ occurred to you that your girlfriend could use a burglar alarm at her house?" she said, stepping over him. "And, yes, you are that obvious," she added when she saw the inquiring look on his face.

When she stepped over the threshold into the apartment, she saw that Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were all gathered in a tiny living room that consisted of two couches - one navy and one a pale beige, a colorful rug, and a coffee table in front of the fireplace. April was bustling about the tiny kitchenette, making coffee for everyone as it was now five in the morning and the sun had just started to rise.

"You look like hell," Raphael said, crossing his arms.

"I look the same as I did last night," Emmeline said, dropping her bag onto the floor.

"So," April said, intervening quickly. "Since I live on my own, you can either sleep in my dad's bedroom or the blue couch is a pull-out."

"I'll take the couch," Emmeline said. "And thanks again for doing this, I really appreciate this."

Raphael bit back a smart remark, reminding himself for the millionth time that Emmeline was now homeless.

"Look," Leonardo said. "This isn't exactly the safest living solution, so we've been talking and…" His voice trailed off as a hesitant frown spread across his face.

"Now, hear us out," Michelangelo said, holding his hands up like a peace offering. "It's a crazy idea, we know -"

"Oh, my god," Raphael said, cutting him off. He pushed past his brothers and locked eyes with Emmeline. "Go to the police. Seriously, people are trying to kill you and we can't be there 24/7. Go to the police."

Emmeline scoffed, shaking her head. "Yeah, one problem with that," she said. "You really think they're gonna believe I was attacked by an evil ninja army in _New York freaking City_ \- what do I say? They jumped me in Little Tokyo?"

"So just tell them about the Purple Dragons," Leonardo told her. "We've been doing some research, and since this would be your first offense -"

"That we know of," Raphael added under his breath.

Leo cast him a dark look and went on. "They should go easy on you if you tell them you have information on Hun and the others."

"And if you ever wanna move out of here, you're gonna need a job," April said, carrying over some mugs and the pot of the coffee. "To get a job, you're gonna need to pass a background check."

"The Dragons would kill me if I snitched on them," Emmeline said, sinking into a sofa and pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Thanks," she added to April.

"Aren't they already trying to kill you, though?" Michelangelo reminded her.

"You don't have to go turn yourself in today," Leonardo said, smiling sympathetically. "Just think about it, okay, because if you ever want to make a real life for yourself, this is something you're probably gonna have to overcome."

Emmeline nodded, taking a sip from her cup. She hated to admit it, but he was probably right.

"If things get really bad, though, you're always welcome to stay at the lair," Leo told her. "Both of you - April knows that."

Emmeline smiled up at him. She knew that it was their fault she was in this mess. If the turtles had never confiscated that first canister from her, she would have never ended up in this situation, but they had saved her from the Foot last night. And, now, they had saved her from being homeless. She couldn't help but feel indebted to them.

* * *

Two weeks passed slowly, uneventfully. Emmeline refused to leave the safety of April's apartment. She knew there was always the chance that Hun could trace her back there. After everything that she and the turtles had done for her, Emmeline didn't want to put April's life in further danger. She didn't want to drag anyone else down with her. Whether or not that made her a good person, she didn't know.

As the days passed and winter further encased the city, depression settled deep into Emmeline's bones. She could go days without getting out of bed, she refused to sleep. She would stay up all hours until she finally, eventually, passed out. The only thing she looked forward to were Becca's phone calls about how Owen was doing. She was the only person from her old home that Emmeline was still in contact with. She made her swear not to give her parents her new number.

Emmeline and April developed an uneasy sort of relationship as roommates. Emmeline wasn't used to being confined to such a tight space, and the longer she stayed there, the more agitated she became. Rather than pushing her out, though, April had taken to spending her nights in the sewer lair with the turtles.

Leonardo texted her occasionally, but the other turtles kept their distance. Part of her almost hoped that Raphael would text her just so she'd have someone to talk to. She hated to admit it, but part of her had started to enjoy their bickering.

Then, on the night of the 23rd of December, Emmeline heard voices coming from the hall outside the front door. She sat silently on the pull out in the darkened living room she had made her home. The only light in the room came from her Macbook.

"You guys said she was a dealer," April's voice came through the closed door. "Maybe she was sampling her stash - she has all the symptoms."

"Or," Leonardo countered. "She could just be depressed from everything she's been through."

"We won't know until she takes the test," Donatello reminded them calmly.

" _If_ she takes the test," Raphael now chimed in.

At this point, Emmeline rose to her feet, crossed the room, and threw open the front door. It slammed into the wall behind it with a loud _bang_ , startling the group gathered in the hallway landing. They all turned to look at her in unison.

"Emmeline," Michelangelo grinned up at her, feigning innocence. "Hey, girlfriend. How you doing?"

Emmeline ignored him. "I have ears, you know," she informed the others, scowling at them.

"Look," April said quickly. "We're just worried about you -"

"Which is why you want me to take a drug test?" Emmeline finished for her. She stormed back over to the couch. "Yeah," she added, throwing herself down. "I figured out your little plan."

Leo rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I mean, given your history -"

"Which you know nothing about," Emmeline reminded him viciously.

"Because you won't tell us anything," Raphael shot back at her, crossing his arms.

April pushed past the others and went to go stand in front of her. "We are only trying to help you," she said, kneeling down in front of the pull out. "That is all we've ever tried to do, but we can't do that if you don't talk to us."

"What does it matter if I'm a cokehead?" Emmeline said. "I haven't had any access to the shit since the night you guys took that canister of mutagen from me. I have no money, and any dealer that isn't dead stupid won't to sell to me to stay on the Dragons' good side."

"So you have been using," Leonardo concluded, frowning.

Emmeline said nothing.

Raphael gaped at her as realization dawned on him. There had always been something about her that never made sense: If Hun had hurt her the way she had said he did, when had she kept on going back to him over and over again?

"That's why you kept hanging around the Purple Dragons," Raphael said, putting the pieces together. The others all turned to look at him. "He got you addicted, so you'd keep coming back."

"Is that true?" Leonardo asked, turning back to Emmeline.

She wouldn't meet his eye. Instead, she stared down at the newly healed wounds on her legs. "It's complicated," she said in a voice that was barely even a whisper.

"Statistically speaking," Donatello said from his spot in the doorway. "People who suffer from depression or other mental illnesses are ten times more likely to become addicts."

Emmeline scowled at him. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and when she spoke her voice trembled. "I am more than just some statistic!"

"Well, why then?" Raphael demanded. "What could possibly be your excuse?"

"Why this - why that?!" Emmeline said, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Well, if I had to guess I'd say it's probably so I could forget the burning desire I have to stick a gun in my goddamn mouth!" She got to her feet and walked to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

The others stood in the living room, staring after her. The air was now thick with shock and tension. None of them said anything as they absorbed this new information. What could they say?

Raphael clenched and unclenched his fist as he stared at the closed door of the bathroom. Finally, he sank to the floor with a sigh. "That was not the answer I was expecting."

Then a high-pitched beeping sound came from the small device Donnie was carrying - the mutagen radar. They all turned to him. It had picked up on a canister nearby, they all knew without asking.

"Is it, like, safe to leave her here?" Michelangelo asked, concern coloring his features.

"You guys go," Raphael said, making a shooing motion with his hand. "I'll make sure she doesn't do anything stupid."

"Are you sure?" Leonardo asked him.

Raph shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. "I've got nothing better to do."

Leo nodded. "Alright."

Then he and the others turned, and left without a word.

* * *

Raphael spent that night on the floor outside the bathroom door. Emmeline never came out. He didn't know whether he should go to her or leave her on her own, but he knew what he would want if he had been in the same situation. So he left her alone, listening intently to make sure she didn't try to hurt herself.

At about 3am, he heard the sound of the shower going and then the unmistakable sounds of violent sobbing. "This is not how I wanted to spend Christmas freaking Eve," he said, pushing himself to his feet. He knocked on the door hard. "Yo, Emmeline, you okay in there?"

He jumped aside as the door swung open a moment later, and Emmeline appeared in a towel. "I'm fine," she said, pushing past him.

Raphael turned his eyes to the floor as she began rummaging through her bag of clothes that sat on the floor by the couch. "I heard crying," he said, staring at the thinning carpet.

"Maybe it was a ghost," Emmeline said, walking past him with a change clothes back into the bathroom. She closed the door again.

Raphael leaned against the door silently, uncertain of what to say. He was in no mood to argue with her. Not after last night. He didn't pity her, exactly. He just wished he could do something to help.

He cried out loudly as he nearly fell over when the door opened again.

Emmeline stood in front of him with a smirk, dressed in a black hoodie and ripped skinny jeans. "Pretty clumsy for a ninja," she laughed.

She pushed past him and grabbed her coat and her Macbook off the couch.

"Where are you going?" Raphael asked, watching her. "It's three-thirty in the morning."

"Which means it is officially Christmas Eve," Emmeline said, smiling at him.

"So what?" Raphael said. "All the stores are closed."

"We live in New York City," Emmeline reminded him. "Something will be open. Besides, I've had this planned for weeks." She strode across the living room, and out the front door.

Raphael followed after her. "Had what planned?"

Emmeline turned to him, smiling. It was almost as though last night had never happened, but, no, Raphael knew better. He saw the hollow look in her eyes. She was forcing herself to be happy. "How I'm going to say thank you," she told him.

"Thank you?" Raphael echoed, following her down the stairs and out the side door of the building. "To who?"

Emmeline looked at over her shoulder. "To you," she said. "And your brothers, and April and Casey. They should all be down in the lair by now, right?"

Raph shrugged. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

Emmeline spun around to look at him. "Well, then," she said. "It is your job to call them and tell them to get the hell down there, while we're out."

Raph stared at her. She couldn't be serious. "Out?" he said again. "Doing what?"

Emmeline turned and started down the sidewalk. "First, I'm gonna pawn this," she said, waving her Macbook in the air. "Then I have a few things to pick up."

Raphael followed her, partially stunned, through the city trying to figure out what the hell was going on in that four-foot-seven head of hers. After she ducked inside a shady-looking pawn shop, he pulled out his T-phone and dialed the first number on speed dial.

"Sup, bro?" Michelangelo greeted him. "Uh, Emmeline didn't off herself yet, did she?"

"What the hell kinda question is that?" Raphael said, unable to restrain himself. He didn't wait for his brother to answer he went on. "She's fine - she's acting like the whole thing never happened. Said she wants to thank us. She's in a pawn shop, selling her laptop."

"For what?" Michelangelo said. "Thank us how - she's not buying a new gun, is she?"

"Oh, yeah, Mikey let's just have the five-foot-five turtle peek in the shop window and see what's up," Raphael said, trying very hard to keep from rolling his eyes. "What would matter if she was buying a new gun?"

"Cause she might planning a Christmas Eve massacre!" Mikey told him, his voice rising to a shout.

"You're insane, you know that?" Raphael said. Then he heard the sound of shop bells jingling, and glanced down from his perch on the roof of the pawn shop to see Emmeline leaving. "Just get everyone down to the lair. Later," he said, hanging up the phone.

The next stop on the list turned to out to be at a store in the East Village that specialized in Asian candies and cakes. Raph waited on the roof of the store until Emmeline came back, carrying a large, white box. "Surprised this place was open at this hour," he said, checking to make sure there was no one around before he dropped onto the sidewalk. "What's in the box?"

"Mochi cakes," Emmeline said simply. "And a Christmas cake. I had to special order it."

"Mochi cakes?" Raphael asked her somewhat cluelessly. He only had the vaguest idea of what mochi was - a type of sweet, Japanese dough made from rice grains. Splinter had mentioned it a couple times, but none of the turtles had ever actually tried it.

Emmeline nodded. "You said Splinter was from Japan, right?"

Raphael stared at her. "What's that got to do with anything?"

She sighed and pulled a folded up sheet of paper out of her pocket, and thrust it at him. It was an article entitled Ten Fun Facts About Christmas In Japan. "I thought you guys might like an authentic Japanese Christmas," she said, watching him read the article.

Raphael stared down at the paper, uncertain of how to respond. This was, really, the first time anyone had ever done anything like this for his family. April always helped supply food during the holidays, but money was tight for everyone, so it was usually a small affair. And no one had certainly ever gone out of their way to make sure they had an "authentic Japanese Christmas," to use Emmeline's words. He thought back to the conversation he had had with the others on the night Emmeline had been thrown out of her home. Maybe she was a good person. Finally, he managed to force out the words, "KFC - this is stupid. Why is this so important to you?"

Emmeline turned and started down the sidewalk. "Part of my family is Chinese," she told him as he followed after her, her voice sounding every bit as sad as it had the night before. "But we're mostly white, so we never celebrated Chinese New Year or anything, even though I always wanted to. Then when my grandmother died, I started to realize how horrible it felt not to know anything about her culture. You guys still have Splinter around, though. It's not too late for you to learn, Raphael-kun."

Raph frowned at the use of the honorific. "Raphael-kun?"

"Too much?" Emmeline asked, smiling at him. "I learned that from reading manga."

Raphael refrained from asking her what the hell manga was. Instead, he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. She paused and turned to look at him, frowning. "About what you said last night…" he said, his voice trailing off.

Emmeline's smile that had seemed forced and empty all night, now appeared genuine and sympathetic. "You too, huh?" she asked him knowingly.

He looked away from her, unable to admit that, of course, he had thought about it. He was a giant turtle, after all - a mutant. The by-product of alien slime used to create freaks and monsters. Instead he simply said, "Don't ever say anything like that again, got it?"

He let go of her wrist. Then he pushed past her, and started off down the sidewalk.

"Raphael?" Emmeline called after him, watching him go.

He paused and turned to face her. "Yeah, what?"

She beamed at him, her eyes sad and yet, somehow, hopeful. "Merry Christmas, Raphael."

* * *

A/N: Okay, you guys, this is the first time I have tried to write a Christmas special for any of my fanfictions, so I really hope you guys like it. I did a lot of research to make sure everything was accurate because I have never actually been to NYC, so….Yeah, if anything seems inaccurate just roll with it and correct me if you feel like it in your reviews.

Again, special thanks go out to Megmoo, TheUnknownLady, and all the guests who have read and reviewed this story. Thank you, guys, so much. I'm so happy that you all like my story and that you've stayed with it this far. Please, keep on reading and review because as I've said before, I love knowing your thoughts on the story.

That being said stay tuned, guys, because there is a lot more to come with this story.

I hope you guys all have a safe, warm, happy, and lovely holiday. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! :D


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

08

Raphael watched Emmeline look over her bike in meticulous detail. Not that he could blame her. This was the first time she had seen it in weeks. Then again, it was the first time she had ventured outside of April's apartment in weeks, too.

Emmeline's "authentic Japanese Christmas" had turned out to be one of the strangest experiences of Raphael's life: They ate KFC with mochi cakes and a Christmas cake decorated like a Yule log for desert. Then they decorated the turtles' ancient artificial tree with Dollar Store ornaments, while "Xmas Cake Bomb" played on a loop in the background. When they woke up the next morning, they found multi-colored stockings stuffed with Japanese candies, including wasabi and cherry blossom-flavored chocolate bars.

Raph still had a hard time believing the whole thing had been Emmeline's idea. What had been even stranger was seeing her with her guard down on Christmas Eve, acting like a normal kid for once instead of someone fighting for their life. It wasn't a side of her Raphael had even known existed. He liked it.

But now Christmas was over, and Emmeline seemed to have put her guard back up.

"Are you ever gonna go talk to her?"

Raphael jumped at the sound of Michelangelo's voice. He spun around to see his youngest brother beaming up at him from behind the bench Raph was sitting on. "Why do I gotta talk to her - what makes you think I want to?" Raphael retorted. "Can't I just sit here?"

"Well, yeah," Mikey said, stepping over the bench and sitting down beside him. "But you've been staring at her for, like, five whole minutes."

"And?" Raphael prompted, waiting for further information.

"Hmm," Mikey said, considering. "Something's up with you," he concluded finally. He looked from Raphael to where Emmeline stood, carefully examining her motorcycle by the shellraiser and back again. "Did something, like, happen between the two of you?"

"Are you insane?" Raphael spat at him, jumping to his feet. "I don't even like her."

"I knew it!" Michelangelo called after him, watching him go.

Raphael rolled his eyes as he stormed over to the stainless steel kitchen and retrieved a deluxe pizza from their stockpile in the fridge. His thoughts drifted back to the 23rd of December and to Christmas Eve. The night he had found out Emmeline was contemplating suicide.

" _Don't ever say anything like that again."_

Raph didn't know what he had been thinking when he had reached out for her and said those words to her. He had tried to decipher the meaning behind them in his head over and over again. But all he really knew for sure was that, in that instant, he did not want anything bad to happen to Emmeline Harris. He knew that, on the surface at least, she was a bad kid with some serious enemies and a bad drug problem. On that night, though, when she forced herself to let her guard down and be happy when she was so obviously in pain, Raphael realized how much she was struggling to move on with her life and maybe even be a good person.

He put the pizza in the oven and turned just in time to see April sit down at the island. "So is he right?" she asked, suppressing a smile. " _Did_ something happen?"

"Nothing life changing," Raph assured her, shaking his head. He set a timer on their stone-age microwave and sat down on the stool opposite from hers. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

April looked at Emmeline over her shoulder. She was now talking to Casey about something or other, gesturing to her motorcycle. "You two are different," April said, turning back to Raph. "You aren't trying to kill each other."

"Yeah," Raphael said. "Because she's not being a total -"

"And you're not being a complete jerk to her," April smirked, cutting him off. "Are you two friends now or what?"

Raph shrugged and made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "I don't know if I'd go that far." He looked back at Emmeline and was surprised by the heat that flooded his stomach as he watched her, laughing with Casey. "I just figure there's more to her than I thought."

April smiled at him warmly. "You've come a long way, Raphael."

* * *

Later that night when they were all eating pepperoni pizza in the pit with the television playing quietly in the background, Emmeline cleared her throat loudly from her spot on the floor. They all turned to look at her. "So I've been thinking," she said, turning her attention to her cuticles. "And I'm going to turn myself in tomorrow."

"Finally," Raphael chuckled humorlessly. "It's about damn time."

"Raph!" April hissed at him, scowling.

"What?" Raphael laughed. "We told her to do this weeks ago."

Leonardo smiled sadly. "It's for the best, Em."

Raphael frowned at him. Since when were those two on a first name - no, a _nickname_ basis?

"I'm also dropping out of school," Emmeline told them grimly.

April turned to her, gaping. "What?"

"Poor life choice number 794," Raphael muttered, shaking his head.

"I'm gonna have to go ahead and side with Raph on this one," Donatello said, setting his plate down on the floor in front of him. "And I do not say that very often."

"Ditto," Michelangelo chimed in, looking slightly afraid he was about to be viciously attacked.

Emmeline leaned back against the bench behind her and stared up at the ceiling blankly. "Well, I can't keep going to my private school. I got an Email from them today, saying I'm gonna be expelled if my parents don't pay this month's tuition."

"So what are you gonna do?" Leonardo asked her.

"Enroll at our school," Casey suggested brightly, nudging April.

April nodded. "Yeah, that's a great idea."

"I can't enroll anywhere without my parents' permission," Emmeline informed them. "Not until I'm eighteen, anyway."

"Well, when will you be eighteen?" Raphael asked, surprised by the genuine curiosity he heard in his voice.

Emmeline shot him an inquiring look but simply said, "Next September."

"So forever from now," Michelangelo said, taking a bite out of his pizza. "Nice."

"Have you decided what you're going to do until then?" Splinter asked, leaning forward on his staff.

Emmeline blinked up at him. It was the first he had spoken to her all night. She shrugged. "Get a job, get out of April's apartment, try not to piss off whatever parole officer I'm likely to be assigned to, and re-enroll in public school in the fall."

"Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise," Splinter told her, smiling warmly.

Emmeline nodded. "Maybe."

Raphael studied her profile silently. She was doing it: Emmeline was actually doing the right thing, regardless of whatever might happen to her. She was being a good person.

* * *

Raphael sunk a roundhouse kick deep into the abdomen of the attack dummy. It was about twelve-thirty in the morning, according to his T-phone. The others had all gone to bed - the turtles in their rooms and the humans in the pit.

The attack dummy toppled over onto the floor.

"Is that the best you can do?"

Raphael turned to see Emmeline leaning against the closed shoji doors that led to Splinter's room. Panting, he shook his head. "More than enough to take you out."

"Ha!" Emmeline barked at him with a smirk. "If I recall correctly, I won our last fight."

Raph righted the dummy. Then he pulled loose one of his sai, jabbed the dummy with an uppercut, and sank the sai into the dummy's front temporal lobe. "Because you fight dirty," he reminded her, cracking his neck.

"That's the best way to fight," Emmeline told him, watching him flip the dummy in one swift move. "That's how you survive."

Raphael knelt down on the floor with his back to her, sweat dripping down his brow. He stared up at the feeble moonlight that shone down on the barren oak tree. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"You're noisy."

He looked at her over his shoulder. There was something familiar about the look in her eyes. The light had gone out of them the way it had when she had told him about her past with Hun - however little of it. He dropped her gaze quickly. "There's no reason to be afraid," he told her. "You're doing the right thing, going to the cops tomorrow. They aren't like the Dragons - they aren't out to kill you or ruin your life."

"No, no," Emmeline laughed humorlessly. "They only want to imprison me for the rest of my life."

"It's your first offense - they'll go easy on you," Raphael said, repeating what they told her days ago. "You just gotta tell them what they wanna know. As for the punishment, don't you think you should have thought about that before you became a drug dealer?"

Emmeline was silent for a long moment. Raphael knew he was tiptoeing around dangerous territory. He knew that she would just as soon as slap him rather than answer any of his questions. He had to know, though - these questions had been nagging him ever since their conversation in the restroom. They had resurfaced when he finally saw her acting like a normal kid on Christmas Eve and they all boiled down to one thing: Her past - what had led Emmeline to a life of drugs, crime, and potential suicide? What had Hun done to drag her down this far?

Part of him wasn't sure he wanted to know, but the larger, more curious part of his mind was begging for answers.

Finally, Emmeline sighed, "I didn't have a choice."

Raphael stood up and walked over to her. "What's that mean?" he asked, scowling down at her.

"It means exactly what it sounds like," Emmeline told him. "I had no choice - just like everyone else, I have bills to pay."

"What, did Daddy refuse to pay for your cell phone?" Raphael asked, smiling darkly.

Emmeline scoffed as she pushed past him and walked over to the tire swing that hung over the burst sewer main. She pulled it towards her and climbed on the swing. "They're medical bills," she said, pushing off from the ground. "My parents refused to pay them. I'm still paying them off."

Raphael frowned as he walked over to her. "You got sick or something?"

"Yeah," Emmeline said. "Sick of living."

He knew he should have seen it coming, but the answer still hit Raphael like a punch to the gut. It was still every bit as shocking as the first time she had said it, and he could tell from the way she spoke that she wasn't saying it just to be a smartass. He shook his head as his words from Christmas Eve echoed once again in his head. "I hate hearing people talk like that - feeling sorry for themselves."

Emmeline looked down at her reflection in the murky water beneath the swing. Her hair was longer than it had been before. Only by a little bit and she seemed smaller, somehow, than before. She leaned into the swing as it came to a halt above the water, pressing her head against the warm, grimey rubber. "Well, it's the truth," she sighed.

Raphael looked up at her, knowing he had to choose his next words very carefully. "Is that why you -?" he started to say hesitantly. "You know, started using…?" His voice trailed off.

Emmeline would not meet his gaze as she spoke. "That's part of the reason," she said in a voice that was barely even a whisper.

Raphael walked over to the pit, and dragged the bean bag chair over to the edge of the burst sewer main. "I'm listening," he said, sitting down. "What's the rest of it?"

Emmeline took a deep, rattling breath. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation. She didn't even want to have it. But she _did_ want someone to listen. All she needed was someone to hear her part of the story. She sighed and said, "Remember that war I was telling you about last time?"

"The one with Hun?" Raphael said, unable to keep himself from clenching his hands into angry fists.

She nodded. "Let's just say there were repercussions."

"What's that mean?" Raph asked her.

She looked up at him pleadingly with large, unfamiliar, fearful eyes. She didn't know who she was begging, exactly - him or herself. "My family was so happy," she said, shaking her head. "They were just glad everything was over with, but he wouldn't leave me alone. I was still fighting him - I could never get that day out of my head."

"That day?" Raphael echoed as understanding dawned on him. "Is that why you don't sleep?"

Emmeline looked away from him and went on, "Then when one day, he offered me an easy out…"

"So you took it," Raphael concluded for her.

Emmeline sniffled loudly and said in a voice that was thick with emotion, "Help me get out of this thing."

Raphael stood up and pulled the swing towards him, so that it hovered over the concrete floor instead of sewer water.

Emmeline reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder as she climbed out of the swing. "Good night, Raphael," she said as she started for the pit.

Raphael's arm was still warm from where she had grabbed him. He didn't know what to say or what he wanted to say even. He suddenly felt the weight of Emmeline's past crushing him. It was like someone had reached inside of him, grabbed his heart, and squeezed. "Emmeline…" he started to say.

She looked at him over her shoulder with those familiar, steely blue eyes and he knew he wasn't going to get anything more out of her tonight. "I said good night," she told him sternly.

* * *

The next morning Emmeline sat in her guidance counselor's office at Franklin Prep. She leaned across the desk and pulled the small pile of paperwork towards her. She snatched a pen out of a cup on the desk and started filling out the forms.

Ms. Marshal, her guidance counselor, cleared her throat loudly. "You do realize you will need your parents' permission to, officially, drop out?"

"You got a Post-It?" Emmeline asked without looking up at her.

Marshal frowned. "Pardon?"

Emmeline sighed unable to keep from rolling her eyes. The woman was acting she had pressed a gun to her head. Emmeline's reputation must have been better than she thought. "A Post-It?" she echoed. "A sticky pad or whatever?"

"Oh!" Ms. Marshal exclaimed as understanding dawned on her. She began to rummage through her drawers hurriedly. A moment later, she produced a small pad of neon pink Post-Its. She practically threw the thing at Emmeline.

"Right," Emmeline said, snatching up the pad. She scribbled something on it as she went on. "You can fax the paperwork to my dad's office at this number. He should sign it pretty quickly once he figures out what it is."

Marshal nodded as Emmeline quickly filled out the rest of the forms. "Well, I have to say, this is….Well, not unexpected -"

Emmeline stood up so fast she knocked her chair to the ground. "I know," she said, turning to leave the office. "I'm a real self-fulfilling prophecy."

She stormed out of the office and into the beige-and-navy hallway. As she rounded a corner, she became vaguely aware of someone calling her name.  
"Yo, Harris!"

Emmeline knew only one person who addressed her by her last name. "What do you want?" she said over her shoulder without stopping.

Alex Matthews quickly fell into step beside her. "I was wondering when I'd see you again," he grinned down at her.

"I thought you weren't into pedophilia," Emmeline said, quoting what his words from their last night together: The night she had been attacked by the Foot in the club.

"Aww, c'mon," Alex said, draping his arm across her shoulders. "You know I didn't mean it."

She gave his arm a look of disgust and shrugged out of his grasp. "Do you have my shit or what?" she demanded.

Alex blinked down at her. "What shit?"

Emmeline paused halfway down the hallway, laughing humorlessly as she pressed her palm to her forehead. "Why are the pretty ones always so dumb?" Then she turned to face him. "My shit - the jacket and bag I left at your house?"

"Oh, yeah," Alex said, nodding in understanding. "I put them in your locker."

She scowled up at him. "You were in my locker?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Alex said, reaching out to touch her. "I've got you all - OW!"

Emmeline grabbed by the wrist, twisting his arm behind his back and bending his wrist back as far as it would go. Just like Hun had taught her. "If you _ever_ touch me without -"

"Miss Harris!" a shrill voice echoed down the halls.

Emmeline turned to see none other than Mrs. Frederickson - the headmistress of Franklin Prep - walking down the hall towards them. "Son of a bitch," Emmeline said, releasing Alex.

* * *

Mrs. Frederickson's office was large and rectangular with two walls lined with towering bookcases, and a portrait of the previous headmaster hanging above the bay window. The majority of the space was dominated by a large, oak desk. Which Emmeline was now seated in front of in a rigid wooden chair.

"I have tolerated a lot from you, Miss Harris," Frederickson said, wiping her glasses clean on the hem of her shirt. "And I do mean _a lot_ , considering you put our school to shame in your freshman year."

"Oh, goody, we're still going on about that," Emmeline laughed, wondering vaguely why Alex wasn't in this room with her, but she knew the reason why: Because it was her. Always her. Everyone wanted a reason to make life difficult for Emmeline freaking Harris. "I'm glad you seem to think that is any of your business," she added with a scowl, crossing her arms.

"It is always my business when one of my students ends up -" Frederickson began.

"What happened back then is between me and my family," Emmeline quickly cut her off. "So get to the frigging point. I'd like to get out of here and move on with my life."

Frederickson put a hand to her a temple with a sigh. "This is a zero tolerance school, Miss Harris -"

At that point, they both turned as the door of the office swung open. Emmeline wasn't sure who she'd been expecting, but she was still surprised to see Becca standing in the doorway, pushing Owen in a stroller. She turned back to the headmistress. "You called my nanny?"

Becca looked at the both of them apologetically. "I am so sorry," she said, shaking her head. "You know, I couldn't just leave him," she added to Emmeline, parking the stroller and sitting down in the seat beside her.

"No problem," Emmeline smirked. "If I'm gonna go out I might as do it in style - always better to have an audience present."

Becca merely shook her head once again and turned to Frederickson. "What, exactly, is this about?" she asked. "I need something to tell her parents."

Emmeline scoffed. "Like they care."

Frederickson ignored her and said calmly, "I was just in the process of telling Miss Harris that since this a zero tolerance school, and she acted violently towards another student I have no choice but to expel her."

Becca gaped at her. "What - but Emmeline has never done such a thing before. I mean, I know she's caused _some_ trouble in the past. She's not perfect, but she would never touch another student."

"I was witness to it myself," Frederickson informed her.

Becca turned to Emmeline inquiringly.

Emmeline shook her head and got to her feet. "You wanna expel me, then fine. The only reason why I stopped by here today was to fill out the paperwork, so I can drop out. I'll go clear out of my locker."

"Emmeline," Becca said, jumping to her feet and blocking her path. "Are you sure?"

Emmeline pushed past her. "My parents aren't paying the tuition, anyway," she reminded her.

* * *

A/N: Alright, guys, I am SO, SO, SO sorry it took me this long to update this story. I just moved into a new apartment and haven't had the money to get Wifi turned on yet. So I am updating this from the library.

Thank you SO much to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I hope you all loved the Christmas special, and please be sure to tell me what you think of this chapter. I love hearing from you guys and hearing your thoughts, especially since it looks like more of Emmeline's past is starting to leak out.

I promise the next chapter will be up A LOT sooner, so please R&R, guys. Thank you 3


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

09

Raphael lay silently in the semi-darkness of his bedroom, resting his head against a long ago deflated pillow on a saggy mattress. The walls were papered with pictures of rock bands and girls he was sure he'd never come to face to face with let alone have an actual chance with. A shelf constructed out of cinderblocks and two-by-fours stood by the doorway, supporting a full stereo system and speakers complete with radio cassette player. In the corner of the room, a plexiglass Critter Keeper stood empty on a beaten up coffee table.

"Raphael!"

Raphael's spine went rigid as he became aware of someone calling for him. It was a voice he knew, but it was different somehow. It sounded far away and haunting.

"Raphael," the voice said again, drifting in through door which he had left just barely open.

Raph stood up silently and walked over to the doorway, wondering what she could possibly be doing back down here so soon. She couldn't have left more than a hour or so ago. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and started off down the hallway that led to the pit. Once he got there, he paused: The pit was empty.

Where was his brothers - where was April and Splinter or even Casey?

Raphael walked to the center of the pit. From where he stood, he could see almost the whole sewer lair. But no one was in sight. He was alone.

"Raphael!"

He spun around. Then froze as he felt the blood drain from his face: Hanging above the burst sewer main where the tire swing was supposed to be was Emmeline hanging from a mangled noose. Her skin shone with a waxy pallor, her normally bouncy hair hung limp, and a thin trickle of blood dribbled down her chin. The light was fading from her eyes, but she wasn't dead Raphael saw with a start as she reached up to grab the rope that was wrapped around her neck.

"Emmeline!" Raphael said, rushing over to her. "Wh-what did you do - what the hell did you do?!" He came to a halt in front of the burst main and pulled his sai from his belt. He reached out as far as he could, wrapping one arm around Emmeline's legs and used his other hand to slash the rope.

Emmeline gasped as Raphael caught hold of her just before she hit the murky water and pulled her away from the ledge. He lifted her bridal style and carried her hurriedly over to the pit. Where the hell were the others? He couldn't help but think as he lay her down on one of the four stone benches.

She smiled up at him and said in a rattling, rasping breath, "Everything will be alright now, Raphael."

Raph frowned, shaking his head, and knelt down in front of the bench. There was something, he realized, different about the way she said his name. She pronounced the syllables so clearly it came out sounding lyrical almost. "No, it isn't," he said, pushing the thought away. "You're hurt."

Emmeline tilted her head just the slightest bit to the side. "Not anymore," she whispered. Her eyelids fluttered as the light started to fade from her eyes.

"Emmeline!" Raphael cried out.

* * *

Raphael sat bolt upright in bed, startled awake by his own frenzied cries. He looked around his room, panting slightly, his heart pounding in his chest. The room looked the same as it always had - nearly identical to how it had appeared in his dream. That had been a dream, right?

He pushed himself to his feet and ran out of the room. He ran straight to the burst sewer main, but Emmeline wasn't there. Instead, the tire swing hung motionless above the water.

"Are you okay, Raph?"

"Wha-?" Raphael spun around to see his brothers staring at him.

Leonardo had been the who had spoken. He took a hesitant step towards his brother. "You look really freaked out," he told him, frowning.

Raph shook his head as he walked over to the pit and sank down onto one of the benches. "Yeah, yeah," he said, trying to calm his still pounding heart. "I'm fine. Just peachy." He pulled his T-phone off his belt as he spoke and began to look through his contacts.

Leo exchanged a glance with Michelangelo. "You sure, bro?" Mikey asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, did something happen?" Donatello asked him.

Raphael scowled. "I'm fine," he told them all assuredly as he typed out a text message to Emmeline.

* * *

Emmeline scoffed as her T-phone went off as she made her way down the hall that led to her locker. Becca trailed along behind her, pushing Owen in his baby blue stroller. She frowned when she caught sight of the device in Emmeline's hand.

"What is that thing?" Becca asked her, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

"A phone," Emmeline told her, coming to a pause in front of her locker. "Homebrew style…" Her voice trailed off as she took in Raphael's text message:

How's it going? Everything alright?

She opened the contacts menu on her phone and dialed his number. "You're full of surprises lately," she said when he picked up on the first ring, spinning the dial on her locker. "Since when do you give a shit about what happens to me?"

"Em," Becca hissed in the background, covering Owen's ears with her hands. "Language!"

"Who the heck was that?" Raphael asked, not sounding the least bit curious. There was something...Off about his voice, but Emmeline couldn't place exactly what it was. "And I thought we had established that I wasn't a total asshole," he added before she had a chance to comment on anything.

Emmeline swung open her locker door so hard it banged against the closed door of the one beside it with a loud, metallic clang. "Whatever," she said, unable to keep from smiling at the sight of her leather jacket dangling from the hook. "And that was my nanny."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "You have a nanny?" Raphael said finally, unsure whether he should laugh or not. He sounded relieved somehow.

"Technically, she is Owen's nanny," Emmeline corrected, piling papers and folders into her messenger bag. "And, yeah, that's what happens when your parents are too busy to spend time with you."

"Oh," Raphael said. "Right. Who is Owen?"

"My brother," Emmeline told him. "He's three."

"You have a brother?" Raphael asked her.

"And an older sister," Emmeline said, thinking back to the night her parents had thrown her out. "We aren't exactly close, though - well, Owen and I used to be until my parents put an end to that."

At this, Becca shot her a disapproving look as she knelt down to grab one of Owen's toys out of the basket on the stroller.

"Oh," Raphael said again. "So is everything alright?" he added quickly to make up for his lack of response.

Emmeline tore a poster of a black Harley Davidson off the wall of her locker and shrugged as if he could see. She heard movement in the background, and the sound of retreating voices. She wasn't sure how to feel about the idea of Raphael starting to trust her - she enjoyed their squabbles and getting on his nerves. Not only that, but she felt like his blunt honesty balanced her out somehow. She couldn't help but shake the feeling that he was, in some way, good for her. He made her feel - not quite safe but less vulnerable. She hadn't felt that way in a long time.

Finally she said, "Define alright."

Raph sighed. "What happened - what did you do?"

"She got expelled," Becca said sharply in the background.

Emmeline scowled at her.

"Expelled?" Raphael echoed. "I thought you were gonna quit school - how the hell did you end up expelled?"

Emmeline slammed her locker door shut and leaned her forehead against the cool, metal surface. "Look," she sighed into the T-phone. "All I did was defend myself. Some guy I barely even know tried to put his hands all up on me and I wasn't about to let him grope me!"

"So they expelled you for standing up for yourself?" Raphael asked disbelievingly.

"The people who run this school have had it in for me for a long time," Emmeline told him. "They're kinda pissed off that I tarnished the school's perfect reputation a while back."

"Uh, do I wanna know how you did that?" Raphael said, sounding afraid of what the answer might be.

Emmeline shrugged on her jacket and messenger bag. "It's a long story," she said simply.

"Will I get to hear it?" Raphael asked her.

"That depends on how nice you are to me," Emmeline smirked into the phone. "But right now, we have to get to the police station."

"Fun," Raphael said, and then the line went dead.

"The police station?" Becca asked Emmeline as they started to make their way out of the school.

Emmeline was silent for a moment. Then she nodded and said, "Today's the day. Do you still have that guy's number?"

"Yeah," Becca said as Owen chewed off the ear of his favorite stuffed bunny. "I found it with your dad's files."

Emmeline paused and turned to look at her. "No one knows you're here, right?"

Becca shook her head. "I left a note for your dad, but it will be hours before he sees that."

Emmeline nodded and started down the sidewalk that led to the student parking lot where her bike was waiting. "Good. Give him a call and have him meet us at the lower Manhattan precinct, ok?"

Becca shot a nervous look at the stroller. "Are you sure the police station is the best place for Owen?"

Emmeline couldn't help but laugh. "C'mon, we'll be surrounded by cops - it's their job to defend us."

Becca nodded hesitantly as she followed Emmeline to her bike. "Right," she said. "Well, I'll be there in a little over half an hour."

"Good," Emmeline said, climbing on the bike and revving the engine. "See you soon."

Then she put the bike into gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Emmeline sat silently in a steel chair in a dimly lit room with a mirror that took up most of one wall. A police officer named McDaniels sat across from her, stirring his coffee. Becca sat in the chair beside Emmeline's, pushing Owen's stroller back and forth to help him fall asleep.

They all looked up as the door swung open, letting in a blinding beam of fluorescent lighting. Two people stepped inside. One of them was a stern-faced, brunette woman and the other was a silver-haired man Emmeline recognized from his ad. The woman smiled down at Emmeline. "Ran into your lawyer on the way in here." She reached inside her blazer, and pulled out a bronze shield. "My name is Detective Reynolds, and you are the infamous Snow White?"

The silver-haired man raised hand to silence Emmeline before she had a chance to speak. "My client does not have to answer that question," he said, offering Emmeline his hand. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Harris. I am Marcus Welwood, and I will be acting as your attorney."

At those words, Becca hastily jumped to her feet and shook Welwood's hand. "I am Becca Martin," she said. "And I will be acting as Emmeline's guardian today."

Reynolds circled the table and set down her own cup of coffee. "Well, unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything with the proper documents -"

"Which I have right here," Welwood said, tapping his briefcase. "Emmeline sent them to me weeks ago."

"That's right," Emmeline grinned.

Of course the documents weren't legit - she had had to forge her parents signature in order to officially grant Becca guardianship over her. But the only ones who knew that were her and Becca.

Reynolds exchanged a glance with Officer McDaniels. "Well, you are well prepared, aren't you?" McDaniels chuckled humorlessly.

"Yeah, just how old are you?" Reynolds asked, sitting down at the stainless steel table.

Emmeline crossed her arms, her smile fading. "Seventeen."

The two cops exchanged another glance. "Almost old enough to be tried as an adult," Reynolds said, looking back at her.

"Yes, but you won't," Welwood said, taking the seat Becca had vacated.

Reynolds shot him a look. "What makes you say that?" she asked him.

Welwood gestured silently to Emmeline, offering her the floor to speak. They had rehearsed this scenario a lot in their Emails.

Emmeline cleared her throat loudly. "Look," she said, "I've seen enough episodes of _Law & Order _to know how this shit is gonna go down."

"And how's that?" McDaniels asked her.

Emmeline scowled at him. "I'm gonna tell you what you wanna know and then you're gonna call in some specialist to see whether or not I'm lying. Then once you figure out that I'm not, you're gonna offer me some deal - a _good_ deal. No jail time, no stints in juvie, and my guardian here gets a police escort home."

"Why do you think that's gonna happen?" Reynolds asked her.

Emmeline scoffed. Of course, they couldn't make this easy for her. Of freaking course not. "Do you think I don't know what I did is wrong - do you really think I would come here if I had any other choice?" She didn't wait for them to respond. "Look," she went on. "I got in close to the Purple Dragons and their leader - _real_ close. I can tell you things you could only imagine, and now I am paying for it. So here I am, so you can either listen to what I have to say and move forward with your investigation against the Dragons - oh, yeah, we've known about that for a while. We've gotten real good at dodging you guys, too, which is why you've never caught me yourselves. Or you can arrest me and send me to juvie or wherever while Hun is still out there, making life hell for you and everyone else."

Welwood reached out and clapped his hand on Emmeline's shoulder. "But if you do that, don't think my client would hesitate to reach out to the media," he smiled at the detective. "She has a very compelling story, and if you won't listen to it, then we know they would."

Reynolds got to her feet, pushing her chair back with a deafening scraping sound. She cast Emmeline a look that she couldn't quite read. "I'll see what I can do," she said, and started to leave.

* * *

Later that afternoon, as feeble, grey sunlight shone down on the barren branches of the oak tree, Raphael approached Splinter who was meditating on the worn carpets of the training platform just outside of his room. At the sound of his son's approaching footsteps, Splinter's ears perked up and he looked up inquiringly at Raphael. "You look troubled, my son," he observed, watching Raphael kneel down beside him. "What is wrong?"

Raphael stared down at his cuticles silently. He couldn't believe what he was about to say, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't forget the remnants of his nightmare from earlier in the day. He couldn't forget the way her eyes looked as the light faded out of them. "I-I had a nightmare," he said, looking up but still refusing to meet Splinter's gaze. "About her…" His voice trailed off into a quiet, disbelieving silence.

Splinter nodded toward the pit with widened eyes. "About April?" he pressed.

Raphael shook his head and returned his gaze to the floor. "I know she's okay," he said before Master Splinter had a chance to respond. "I know everything is probably going to turn out fine, but I'm still afraid she's going to do something stupid - try to hurt herself or something." He finally turned to look at Splinter with pleading eyes - eyes that begged for understanding. "I don't get it - she and I aren't friends. We don't even like each other. Why do I care so much about what happens to her - and why I would tell her that I care?"

Splinter reached out and put his hand on Raph's shoulder solemnly. "Sometimes the hardest relationships for us to understand are the ones we have with those who are closest to us."

Raphael frowned up at him. "Close?" he said. "But we aren't close. We aren't even -"

Splinter shook his head, laughing as he grabbed his staff off the floor and used it to push himself to his feet. "Things are not always as they appear, Raphael. Perhaps, in Emmeline's mind, you are closer to her than you might think." He cast a knowing look at Raphael. "Or, perhaps, you would like to be closer to her than you let on. This is not something I can help you with, however. The answer to these questions lie within you, and you must search for them on your own."

"Guys!"

They both looked up to see Leonardo rushing to the center of the pit, brandishing his T-phone.

Raphael stood up and followed Splinter to the pit where the others had gathered around his brother.

"What's up, Leo?" April said from her spot on one of the benches.

"Emmeline just texted me," Leonardo told them, gesturing to his phone. "She just got done with the police. She told them everything and they've decided she's not lying."

"So what happens next?" Raphael asked, masking the urgency he felt.

"Well, she got her nanny to hire this lawyer," Leo explained. "And they threatened to take everything to the newspapers if they tried Emmeline as an adult. So the court is gonna try her as a minor next month -"

"No," Raphael said, shaking his head. "I mean, what is happening to her _right now_ \- are they gonna let her keep staying with April?"

"Two minors living together with no adult supervision?" April reminded him.

"Yeah, that's unlikely," Donatello said, nodding.

"They're sending her to a group home for juvenile girls until the trial or until her nanny can get an apartment." Leonardo shrugged. "Whichever comes first. They're on their way to April's apartment to pick up her stuff, but we won't know more until she actually gets to the group home."

"A group home?" Raphael echoed. "Why do I get the feeling that's a bad thing?"

"Because it is," April told him. "I've read about them. It's where they send high risk foster kids, who are on drugs and all kinds of things -"

"So all and all a wonderful freaking influence?" Raphael said, cutting her off.

"She has no choice," Donatello said, stepping quickly in between Leonardo and Raphael. "Look, if she runs away then they're just gonna label her a flight risk and then the court will come down even harder on her. Is that what you want?"

* * *

The St. Anne Marie Vincent's Home for Girls was a remodeled, three-story brownstone located in Brooklyn with two police officers stationed at the front doors. The car that took her there was a nondescript, Lincoln town car. Emmeline's shiney, new social worker rode in the front seat while Welwood accompanied her in the back. A motorcycle cop was tailing them in case the Purple Dragons were watching and tried to attack.

When they finally got to the group home, it was just after five O'clock in the evening. The sun had just begun to set, casting the sky in pink and purple twilight.

"This way," said the social worker who Emmeline was pretty sure was called Margot Timothy. She led Emmeline and Welwood up the stone front steps, and rang the doorbell.

A moment later, the door was opened by a small, aged woman with a gray pixie cut. "Ah," she greeted them, pushing past Margot who was carrying Emmeline's duffle bag. "You must be Emmeline."

"Sup?" Emmeline smiled up at her.

The woman frowned. "Well, at least she has a sense of humor," she said, spinning around on her heel. "This way, please. We have lots of paperwork to fill out."

The three of them followed her down a narrow hallway past a winding staircase, and into a small office, boxed in by several filing cabinets. Emmeline dropped her messenger bag on the floor and sat down in the only chair available in front of one of three large desks. Two of the desks were empty and hosted expensive looking computers. The third was occupied by a much younger woman with a long, blond ponytail.

"Yeah," Emmeline said, taking it all in. "I still don't see why I have to stay here. I mean, me and Becca were gonna look for a place today."

"Yes, well," the pixie-haired woman said, rummaging through one of the filing cabinets. "Sadly, Becca is still living with your parents and they have disowned you, so living with her is not an option for you at the moment. You are now, officially, a ward of the state."

"Right, right," Emmeline said, nodding. "Lucky me. Who are you again?"

"I am Natalie, the house manager," the woman told her. She pulled a large folder of paperwork out of the cabinet and carried it over to the desk where Emmeline was seated. She pushed the paperwork across the desk towards Emmeline and handed her a pen. "Now, then, while you are staying here you will be required to go to therapy and AA -"

"I have no insurance," Emmeline told her. "My parents took me off their policy almost four years ago. Didn't they tell you any of this?"

"Yes," Welwood said. "She told the police all about this situation with her parents."

"Well, then, you will need to apply for Medicaid, and since you are under the age of twenty-four we are going to petition the courts to ask your parents for child support payments," Natalie informed the both of them.

Emmeline laughed humorlessly as she started to leaf through the paperwork. "They are gonna _love_ that." She paused and looked up at Natalie, pen in hand. "What, exactly, am I signing here?"

"It is an agreement to follow the rules here," Natalie said, sitting down at the desk in front of her. "No smoking in the house, no fighting, no food in the bedrooms, no going in any other the residents' rooms, and if you have a disagreement with one of the other residents, you will be expected to work it out on your own. If you are unable to do so, then - and only then - can you come report the problem to us. Curfew is at midnight on the dot. If you are not in the house by that time, you will be locked out. If we have to call the cops on you while you're here, you are out, and you will be required to pass a drug test once a week. Understood?" She ticked each rule off on her fingers as she spoke.

"Shouldn't be too hard since no one with half of a brain will sell to me right now," Emmeline said, scrawling her signature on the paperwork.

Natalie shrugged. "Well, good, because frankly that just makes our jobs easier." She gestured to herself and the younger blonde girl.

The girl waved to Emmeline. "I'm Amelia," she told her. "I'll probably end up being your primary counselor while you're here."

"Yeah, so," Emmeline said, pushing the pile of paperwork away from her. "I am gonna be able to get out of here after that trial next month, right?" She turned inquiringly to Welwood.

Welwood frowned. "Well, that depends…"

"On?" Emmeline probed.

"On whether or not we determine you are ready to leave here," Natalie said before he had a chance to respond. "Now, then, since you are considered a high profile resident, we need to discuss your schooling-"

"You can't be thinking of sending her with the Dragons out there?" Margot asked, cutting her off.

"Cause they've jumped me at school," Emmeline added quickly. "And it is only a matter of time before they figure out I'm here."

Natalie pursed her lips. "Hence the armed guard at our door," she sighed, "No, we will not be requiring her to go, but I think we can all agree it is not a good idea to let her brain to go to waste, either."

Welwood raised his eyebrows at her. "Meaning, what exactly?"

Natalie reached inside a drawer of her desk and pulled out a large white book with the words T.A.S.C. Prep printed on the cover. "We have a GED prep program that we run here. It is very similar to home-schooling. Now, the New York state has replaced the GED exam with the T.A.S.C. -"

"She'll do it," Welwood said, nodding curtly.

"Um, don't I get a say in this?" Emmeline asked, turning to him and Margot.

Margot smiled sympathetically. "It will make you look good, and given your history, you're gonna need all the help you can get with that."

"She's not wrong," Welwood told her.

"Okay," Emmeline said. "But I was planning on re-enrolling in public school in the fall."

"Then you will be well prepared," Natalie said with a grimace. "Now, then, Amelia will show you to your room."

"That is my cue to leave," Welwood said. He offered his hand to Emmeline. "I wish you all the best, and I will be touch before the trial to rehearse and go over everything. We can discuss again possibly pressing charges against Hun and the Dragons."

Emmeline took his hand and stood up, shaking her head. "If I do that, he's only gonna retaliate. It'll just make things worse."

Welwood exchanged a glance with Margot, frowning. "Once all this gets out in the open, in the papers, he's gonna retaliate, anyway."

Margot nodded and handed Emmeline her duffel bag, which she had been carrying. "You might want to think about it. You deserve justice. It's possible Hun might just get what he deserves."

Emmeline blanched, frowning as she took the bag. "That's debatable," she said after a moment of silence.

"Well, come on," Amelia said, pushing past her and the others into the hallway. "I will take you to your room. Then you can meet the girls."

Emmeline nodded, but her head was still full of thoughts of what her social worker had just said. Justice. Someone thought she deserved justice.

She doubted anyone else she knew would feel the same way.

* * *

In a poorly lit office at the lower Manhattan precinct, Dr. Rodger Chang pulled his second cellphone - the one he claimed he was for work and especially needy patients - out of his pocket, and started to dial. The call went straight to voicemail as he had expected, but still he could not suppress a sigh. This was an _important_ call.

"You're going to want to be prepared for what happens next," he said after the tone went off on the other end of the line. "Everything is about to come out, but don't worry - I know where she is. I'll be in touch."

Then he hung up.

* * *

N/A: Alright, guys, so I am all set up in my new apartment and I officially have Wifi now. That means that updates will be regular once again. I will be updating once a week from now on same as before. Hopefully, you guys will keep reading and reviewing.

Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed last time. I hope the pacing of everything does not feel off as I am trying to avoid using too many obvious tropes. Please, let me know your thoughts in your reviews because I'd love to hear what you guys think.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

10

There were a total of five bedrooms in the group home with two beds in each of them. The room that Amelia led Emmeline to was large and oddly shaped with a slanted ceiling and a small skylight. Two twin beds were pushed up against the back wall, which was painted a sunny yellow and there was a shared walk-in closet in the middle. There were travel trunks situated at the foot of each bed and twin dressers stood guard beside the door. There were no curtains or matching bed sets or even nightside tables. No posters or pictures on the wall - nothing that connected the room to its inhabitants.

Instead, the beds were made up with plain white sheets and beige comforters, heavy enough to keep them warm in the winter but light enough not to be stifling in the summer. A tall, cheap lamp with three heads on it stood next to the open closet door, casting a pale glow on the darkening room.

"This is your side of the room," Amelia said, gesturing to the eastern part of the bedroom and the bed nearest the fire escape. She led Emmeline inside the closet and pointed to the empty shelves on one side. "You can put your things in here - coat, boots, gloves. The rest of your things go in the dresser." She turned to Emmeline, frowning. "We suggest that you lock any valuable items you might have in the trunk by your bed. There have been - ah - incidents in the past."

Emmeline walked out of the closet and threw her duffle bag down on her bed. "Don't worry about that," she said, unzipping the bag and taking out her clothes. "Any valuables I had, I got rid of - there's no way I'm letting the Dragons trace my IP address." She carried her clothes over to the dresser and began to put them away.

Amelia fidgeted with her hands as she watched. "You will be safe here," she told her. "We have the cops circling the block every night-"

Emmeline shook her head. "You're stupid if you think that'll stop them."

"But they didn't come after you while you were staying with your friend, did they?" Amelia asked her.

Emmeline closed the dresser drawers one at a time before she turned to face her with her arms crossed. "Friend is a bit of a strong word, and they didn't come after us because she is well-protected, and no, I don't mean she was in a gang. She's just got friends that the Dragons know better than to fuck with."

Amelia frowned at her. "What about you?"

Emmeline stared down at the floor and said, "People like me don't really have friends - not _good_ ones, anyway."

"You can say that again. We're always getting thrown in with the garbage, and then people blame us when we start to stink, too."

Emmeline turned to see a small mulatto girl with cornrows that spilled down her back. "Nice quote," she grinned at her.

"Yeah, I got some good ones," the girl said, walking across the room to the bed. "You my roommate?"

"Vanessa," Amelia said quickly. "Yes, this is Emmeline Harris, and she will be your roommate from now on."

"Until next month, anyway," Emmeline added, walking across the room and retrieving the rest of her clothes from the duffel bag.

Vanessa took in Emmeline's appearance as she crossed the room. "I heard you was trouble," she told her. "But you don't look you've ever seen the inside of the principal's office."

Emmeline laughed humorlessly. "My principal - well, ex-principal - wishes she never laid eyes on me."

"Oh, no," Vanessa chuckled. "What'd you do - c'mon, let's hear it. Not a single one of us is in here for a good reason."

Emmeline piled some clothes in an open drawer, debating on how much to tell her.

"Emmeline is here because she used to sell drugs," Amelia said when Emmeline hesitated.

"For the Purple Dragons," Emmeline finished for her. She walked across the room, and pushed the duffel bag on the floor before sinking onto her bed. It was hard as a rock and paper thin - like a hospital bed.

Vanessa's smile vanished instantly. "Shit," she said after a moment of consideration. "No one said you was ganged up."

Emmeline shook her head. "I'm not," she told her. "Not anymore anyway."

"What, you trying to get out?" Vanessa asked her. "Cause they don't take that shit too lightly, and I ain't trying to get my ass handed to me by them Dragons."

"I'm not _trying_ to get out," Emmeline corrected her. "I am out and, believe me, the less you know about it the better. If you wanna know anything about me, just read the freaking newspapers. It'll all be out soon enough."

Amelia hurriedly crossed the room and closed the bedroom door.

"So that's why the damn cops was here," Vanessa gasped. "Cause you trying to go after the Dragons. Man, what'd they do to you?"

"Enough," Emmeline scoffed.

"Look," Amelia said, turning to face the both of them. "I don't think it's a good idea for any of this to leave this room, especially since you might not get along with all the other girls in the house, Emmeline. As far as they need to know, you're just some girl who used to sell drugs to get by. We don't need to start a panic because they all think the Dragons are going to come here and attack them or something. So neither of you two breathe a word of this to anyone, got it?" She cast a dark look at Vanessa.

"Yeah, I got it," Vanessa said, nodding. She looked at Emmeline. "But I ain't covering your ass if they do show up - I may have done some stupid shit, but I do know how to stay alive and there ain't no way I'm choosing your ass over life. No offense," she added with a grimace.

Emmeline ignored her and turned to Amelia. "How soon am I allowed to spend the night at a friends' house?" she asked her.

"Well, you can leave the house at any time outside of school hours," Amelia told her. "But you have to be here for at least a fortnight before you're allowed to stay anywhere overnight."

"A what?" Emmeline asked.

"Two weeks," Vanessa clarified. "I read," she added when she saw the inquiring look on Emmeline's face. "Harry Potter and shit like that."

* * *

"She's where?" Raphael asked, leaning so far over in his seat on the bench it looked like he might fall over. "Brooklyn?"

Leonardo took a slice of pizza from the box that was being passed around the pit. "There's where the group home is, yeah."

"She might as be in, like, another galaxy or something," Michelangelo said, reaching for the box. "Brooklyn is forever away from here."

"Actually, it's only an hour by train," Donatello chimed in knowingly.

"And when do you foresee any of us riding the subway, O, All-Knowing-One?" Raphael shot at him. "What are we supposed to do - rent costumes?"

"That would just scare her off," Mikey said through a mouthful of pizza.

"So what about the other girls?" April said, intervening quickly. "Did she say what they were like?"

Leo shook his head. "She hasn't really talked to any of them yet. But I think she said her roommate got brought in after her pimp got busted -"

At those words, Raphael nearly inhaled his pizza and began to have a violent coughing fit. Donatello reached forward to clap him on the back, but quickly withdrew his hand when he saw the scowl Raph shot him into between coughs. He cleared his throat loudly. "Well, I'm sure she is just charming."

Casey frowned and turned to April. "Didn't you say the girls would probably all have rap sheets like Emmeline?"

"Emmeline has been through a lot," Leonardo said before April had a chance to respond. "I'm pretty sure none of them have a story quite like hers."

"What, and she told you her story?" Raphael asked surprised at the venom in his voice. He thought back to the night before when Leo had called her by a nickname. "Since when are you two so close anyway?"

Leonardo raised an eyebrow at him. "Since when do _you_ care?"

"I don't," Raphael told him assuredly, taking a bite of pizza to hide the heat he felt raising in his cheeks. "Just asking."

"And anyway, she didn't tell me everything," Leo informed them all. "Just that she's worried Hun might try to come after her brother. You can just tell from the way she talks about her past. She's been through hell and back."

For once Raph was surprised to find that he actually agreed with his older brother.

"Why is she worried about Hun going after her brother?" April asked.

Leo turned to her, frowning. "She didn't say, but I would assume it's because she's cares so much about her brother, she's afraid Hun might use him to get to her."

Raphael set his plate on the floor and got to his feet.

"Where are you going now?" Donatello said, looking up at him as he started for the stairs that led to the exit.

Raph paused for a moment. Finally he said, "If Emmeline thinks the Dragons might go after her brother, don't you think someone should be watching him?"

Donnie exchanged a glance with Leonardo.

"It's scary when Raphael is the smart one," Michelangelo said when neither of them responded right away.

"Send me a text when one of you guys is able to pick up my shift," Raphael said, starting up the steps.

April sat silently for a moment, contemplating. Then once Raphael was out of the lair she got to her feet and started to jog up the stairs. "I'll be right back!" she called over her shoulder to the others. "Raphael, wait!"

Raph was already halfway down the subway tunnel. "What do you want?" he said without stopping once April had caught up with him.

She reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. "You're not going to watch her brother, are you?"

Raphael shrugged out of her grasp and kept going. "I will. Eventually."

"Look, I know you have guys been talking and you're getting closer," April told him. "But I really don't think she's ready to tell you the truth about everything."

They rounded the corner that led to the abandoned tunnel that would soon bring them to the city's sewer ways. "If I'm gonna spend my nights babysitting some kid I don't even know, I better make damn sure I have a good explanation why," Raphael said as the light in the tunnel grew dimmer and dimmer. Soon they would be shrouded in darkness.

April paused and watched him continue on down the tunnel without her. "Raphael, I really think you're only going to be pushing her away if you force her to tell you the truth tonight. Is that what you want?"

Raphael paused and found himself thinking back to the conversation he had had with Splinter earlier in the day. His thoughts about it had been raging in his head like a swarm of angry bees all day. About whether or not he wanted to be closer to Emmeline. It wasn't something he had to think about because he already knew what her answer would be regardless of how he felt. "Maybe that's a good thing," he said at last, and then he disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

There were six other girls other than Vanessa who lived in the group home, but one of them refused to leave her room except for meals. The youngest girl was a fourteen-year-old Hispanic girl named Ruby, who had been arrested for possession of an eight ball. The oldest was a pale eighteen-year-old girl who Emmeline thought was named Freya. She had been arrested for petty thievery while she was living with a homeless colony. Finally, there were the twins, Amira and Samara, who proudly bragged that their life was the equivalent to a game of _GTA_.

"They aren't gonna try to run me over if I wear booty shorts on a street corner, are they?" Emmeline couldn't help but ask Vanessa as the twins skipped out of the kitchen, hand in hand. The kitchen was long and rectangular with cabinets along three of the walls, countertops that ran the length of the north-facing wall, and a long table in the center of the room.

Vanessa wandered over to the fridge and began to search through it. "I doubt they'd even notice your stick-figure ass," she said, pulling out a Tupperware container full of something. "You need to eat something. You like alfredo?"

Emmeline grimaced. "Why, yes, Mommy, I do," she said, watching her pull out two bowls and load them up with what appeared to be chicken alfredo. Except that it was made with chicken nuggets instead of pan-fried chicken. She frowned as her T-phone went off in her pocket. She pulled it out silently.

It was a text message from Raphael:

Got the address for that group home?

Emmeline texted him back the address quickly and shoved the phone in her pocket.

"Who's that?" Vanessa asked her, popping the bowls inside the microwave on the counter. "Boyfriend?"

"Who, Raphael?" Emmeline couldn't keep from laughing. "No, he's just some guy I know."

Vanessa turned to her with a smirk plastered on her face. "But you like him, don't you?"

Emmeline's smile vanished as she sat down at the long scuffed, wooden table and stared down at her hands. "I haven't liked anyone in a really long time. Not for real, anyway."

The microwave went off. Vanessa pulled out the bowls and set one down in front of Emmeline. "That's not a no," she told her. "Grab us some forks, will you?"

Emmeline spun around in her seat and pulled open a drawer directly behind her. She snatched up two forks and said, "I'm not exactly sure Raphael is relationship material. I mean, he's kinda…." Her voice trailed off as she searched for the right words. "...Different but not in a bad way. Besides, we drive each other crazy."

Vanessa raised her eyebrow at her. "In what way?"

Emmeline stabbed a chicken nugget with her fork. Was she actually having this conversation? She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "I mean, when he first met me, he was all condescending and he sort of hated me, you know, because of the drugs and everything. But I guess his brothers talked to him and now he's actually not a total jerk." She shrugged. "And, I mean, he listens to me. No one's ever really done that."

"If you find a guy that is actually giving you the time of day to hear what you have to say, you need to stick to him like needles on a damn cactus," Vanessa said, pointing to her with her fork. "I'm serious," she said when she saw the look of skepticism on Emmeline's face. "You and I know we fucked up. The whole world knows it, and all most of them wanna do is rub it in. If you find someone that actually wants to know _why_ you fucked up without judging you, then you got a good one. "

"I never said he wasn't judging me," Emmeline pointed out.

Vanessa shook her head. "I don't think so. If he was, then he would have already given up on you and from the way you're talking, it doesn't sound like he has just yet."

Emmeline frowned. "No, not yet."

But he would.

* * *

It was just past midnight when Emmeline woke up to a faint tapping sound coming from the skylight in her bedroom. She opened her eyes to see Raphael staring down at her, tapping the tip of his sai against the glass. She checked to make sure Vanessa was still asleep and pressed a finger against her lips. Then she gestured to the window beside her, which led to the fire escape. She leaned forward and threw the window open, bracing herself for some sort of alarm.

There was none.

Emmeline threw the blankets off herself and climbed through the window onto the fire escape just as Raphael dropped down in front of her. She turned and closed the window, praying it wouldn't lock from the inside. She turned to Raphael, shivering slightly. It was cold out and she was dressed in a pair of night shorts and a tank top. "What are you doing here?" she asked him. Then she remembered the text from earlier and realized she should have been expecting him. "I mean, what do you want, Raphael?"

Raphael almost flinched at the way she said his name. It was too similar to his dream. "We need to talk," he said simply. He climbed the metal ladder back up to the rooftop.

Emmeline followed after him, frowning. "About?"

Raph opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come out. Finally, turning away from her, he managed, "You told Leo you were worried Hun might come after your brother?"

This time, it was Emmeline who was speechless. She couldn't believe Leonardo had told him that. "Oh," she said finally. She wandered over to the roof ledge and sat down, letting her feet dangle over the edge.

Raphael turned to face her and couldn't help but frown at the look of sadness that had taken over her features. He swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat and asked, "Why would Hun go after your brother?"

Emmeline stared out in the brightness of the streetlights that dotted the darkness. "It wouldn't be the first time he's come after my family," she told him.

Raphael shook his head. "No," he said. "No more metaphors or vague references to whatever the hell went down in your past. If your brother is in danger, then I need to know why. You need to tell me the truth."

Emmeline sighed. "I told the cops everything today. All of it." She looked up at him. "Just don't make me need to relive for your brothers, okay?"

Raphael sat down beside her and stared into her sapphire eyes. They were the same as his eyes had been when he had talked to Splinter earlier that day - pleading. He wasn't sure if she was begging him to understand or to make her not have to tell. "That bad, huh?" he said, dropping her gaze.

"Yeah, yeah," Emmeline said, her voice cracking with emotion. "It's pretty bad."

Raph was afraid to look up at her now. Afraid to see the tears that he knew would be in her eyes. "So what happened?"

Emmeline nodded, trying to clear her head and just remain focus on the facts. The important ones. She didn't want to be so sad over something that had happened so long ago. But talking about it now, she felt like she was reliving it. Maybe it was a good thing that her family never wanted to hear about it. "You remember how I told you my family was part Chinese?"

Raphael cast her an inquiring look. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Emmeline took a long, deep, rattling breath and said, "Well, three years ago when I was fourteen, my grandmother who was the only member of our family that was full-blooded Chinese past away." She shrugged. "That's when I realized I didn't know anything about her or my family's Chinese culture, and since she was gone, I realized I probably never would know. So I started hanging out in Chinatown…" Her voice trailed off, while she waited for Raphael to put two and two together.

He nodded. "Dragon territory."

Emmeline nodded. "There was this Asian grocery I liked to go because they sold all these candies from all over Asia, but it was run by this Chinese couple - the Huangs." She smiled at the memory. "That was where Hun found me. I was in there one night with my sister because I wanted to show her all the cool stuff they sold. She and I used to be close back then. Hun came in to buy beer or whatever. Then when he spotted me, he came over and offered to buy me whatever I wanted. I thought he was just some college guy."

Raphael did the math inside his head. "But you were just a kid - you were younger than I am."

Emmeline looked at him with that same pleading look in her eyes. "I didn't know what he wanted. I thought he was just being nice. I was - I don't know - a good kid back then. I had just started high school. I had never been in trouble before."

Raph scowled as things started to fall into place. "Hun took advantage of that."

Emmeline laughed and looked away just as single tear started to stream down her face. "You have no idea."

"What happened?" Raphael asked her.

Emmeline wiped the tear away. "Um, he kept being nice. My sister told me to be careful. She said that even though he was nice, college guys only wanted one thing. We had been hanging out about two weeks when he introduced me to the other Dragons." She shook her head, laughing at her own stupidity. "I didn't realize they were in a gang together. I thought they were just friends - close friends, and that's why they had matching tattoos and all. Then Hun got me a fake ID." She shrugged. "I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't planning on using it until one night, he asked me to go out clubbing with him. I told him I wouldn't do any drinking. Just dancing, you know, nothing illegal. Nothing dangerous."

Raphael stared down at his fingertips. He wasn't sure he liked where this story was going. "How'd that go?"

"He, uh, cornered me in the back of the club," Emmeline told him. "He kept trying to kiss me and stuff, but I didn't want him to. He was drunk, though, and a lot bigger than me, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do since I didn't know how to fight back then. Some guy found us and pulled him off me. I ran." She shook her head, not bothering to wipe the tears that were now flowing freely down her face. "It wasn't the end. Somehow, Hun managed to find out where I live even though I had never given him my address. One of his contacts gave it to him, I guess." She sniffled loudly and cleared her throat before she went on. "A week after the club incident, he and the other Purple Dragons broke into my parents' house. My sister was there. It was just the two of us. They brought guns and shot up the kitchen to scare us. It worked. Then they dragged my sister and me to my room, and put a gun against her head…." Her voice trailed off as she shook her head unable to finish the sentence. Unable to relive anymore of the story.

Raphael stared at her in a stunned silence, almost too afraid to ask what happened next. Instead he managed to ask, "What are you trying to say?"

Emmeline got to her feet, shaking her head and crossed her arms protectively across her chest, which heaved with fresh sobs. "I can't..." she tried to say, shaking her head.

Raphael stood up and went over to her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "This is already over, Emmeline," he reminded her. "Right now, it's just a story. You can do this."

Emmeline stared up at him through her tears. "Raphael," she finally said. "Owen isn't my brother. He's my son, and Hun is his father. He raped me that night. He held my sister and me at gunpoint, and he raped me."

* * *

A/N: So I'm pretty sure not everyone is gonna like the direction I took this in. I can't stop you from commenting if that is the case. If you feel, the story has taken too much of an adult turn at this point, then you may want to stop reading. However, I want to thank everyone who has stayed with me this far, and ask that you continue to support myself and the story with your reviews.

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I'm sorry that this chapter was a late update. I don't always have access to Wifi, and my laptop is on it's last leg. I hope you will be kind enough to continue reading and reviewing in the future.

Thank for reading.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

11

Raphael stumbled so far backwards he found himself standing on the roof ledge, unable to keep the shock he felt from permeating his features. He opened his mouth to respond to what Emmeline had just told him, but no sound would come. His voice felt trapped inside his throat, lodged there, and his breath came out in short, sharp gasps. He was hyperventilating, he realized after a moment. He had to pull it together, but...Raped?

Emmeline had been raped by….He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought.

Emmeline took a hesitant step towards him, her voice coming out choked as she spoke in between fresh sobs. "Raphael?" She sounded ashamed. Ashamed and terrified, but of what?

Raphael thought back to all the stories he seen on the news. Stories like hers about young girls and women being raped or groped or harrassed. He remembered how the news reporters would call them out on national television, demanding to know what they had been wearing or what their thoughts were about the men whose life they had just ruined by accusing them. He remembered how they mourned for the accused while the victims sat silent, brushed under the rug. How long had Emmeline been silent for? He couldn't help but wonder.

Suddenly, he found his fists closing around the sai that dangled from his belt and he turned away from Emmeline, ready to run.

As if on cue, Emmeline rushed over to him just as he was about to leap from the roof and told him firmly, "You can't go after him!" She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down from the ledge.

Raphael scowled down at her. She looked relieved but still terrified. Still ashamed. His gaze drifted to where her hand lingered on his bicep. "Why not?" he demanded, surprised at the way his voice trembled with quiet unsuppressed rage. "Why the hell not - don't tell me you're defending him!" He pulled sharply out of her grasp.

Emmeline stared at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" she asked him bitterly. "Are you freaking kidding me - use your head, Raphael! Think!"

"Then why?!" Raphael spat at her, his voice just below a shout.

"I just fingered him for rape, genius," Emmeline reminded him, jabbing herself sharply in the chest. "If something happens to him tonight, who do you think they're gonna come after for that, huh?"

"Son of a -!" Raphael spun around and punched the wall of the group home so hard he swore he heard a crack, but it was impossible to tell in the darkness of the night.

He pressed his head against the cool rock of the brownstone, panting slightly, defeated. He couldn't go after Hun.

Not without putting Emmeline even more at risk than she already was. Not without putting her family at risk. Not that he gave a rat's ass about them, but she certainly did. He remembered the way she had flown into a panic when Hun had texted her, saying he was coming for them. Now, he knew why.

As that thought entered his head, Raphael turned back to Emmeline. "Tell me something," he said. "How did that kid - _his_ kid - end up living with your family, pretending to be your little brother?"

Emmeline frowned at him. "Owen isn't pretending," she told him. "He's never known me as his mother. For as long as he can remember, I've always been he's big sister."

"But why would you keep him, though?" Raphael said, not giving a damn if it sounded fucked up or not. He needed answers. "Why would you keep a - a baby that's a constant reminder of what he did to you?"

Emmeline sniffled loudly and shook her head. Then she looked down at her fingertips and whispered, "I didn't want to keep him. I wanted to get rid of him the instant I found out, but my parents-" She broke off as fresh tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

"What about them?" Raphael demanded, cutting off her sobs.

"They walked in on it that night," Emmeline said, and suddenly she felt too weak to stand as the rest of that night came flooding back to her. The night she had tried so hard not to remember. "My dad knew something was up when he saw the kitchen all shot to hell." She shook her head and sank slowly to her knees, refusing to meet his gaze. "So he went for the gun in his closet, but my mom - she walked right in and saw the whole thing. Then before anything could happen, my dad came in and started shooting. He told them to get the hell out before he called the cops, so Hun and the Dragons ran. But it was too late. The damage was done."

"What are you talking about?" Raphael asked her. "Didn't they save you - I mean, they're your parents…?" His voice trailed off along with his thoughts, unable to piece together where she was going with this.

"They thought it was all some prank on my sister to traumatize her before she went off to college," Emmeline choked out. "To hurt her chances of getting in or something. I don't know. They thought it was all just an act and that I had some twisted fantasy that I was acting out, and that I wanted what Hun did to happen me - that I had been enjoying myself."

Raphael stared at her, unable to respond. What the hell kind of people were her parents?

"They took me off their medical insurance after I told them I was pregnant," she went on, never meeting his gaze. "I was too afraid to go to Planned Parenthood or one of the free clinics because of all the protests, and if I had tried to get an abortion, they would have thrown me out. They're not exactly wouldn't even drive me to my doctors' appointments, and I'm still paying off the bills. And Hun was still bothering me, still harassing me. My parents had to take out a restraining order just to get him to stop coming around the house. But he had Fong and the other Dragons watching my school. I knew he would find out I was pregnant eventually, and if I did anything to hurt the baby…." She shook her head, unable to finish. "Finally," she said after a short pause. "I decided to put the baby up for adoption. Hun signed away his rights like it was nothing. He didn't care about the baby as long as it was alive. I was the one he _really_ wanted. But when the time finally came, no one wanted to adopt my baby." She shrugged, now looking more ashamed and embarrassed than ever. "I made the mistake of telling a few couples about the rape and that scared them off. The rest wouldn't adopt the baby because of my parents. They demanded to have a say in who got the baby, but no one ever lived up to their standards. When he was finally born, Owen would have been placed in the foster care system without someone to adopt him." She looked up at Raphael and sighed. "So my parents adopted him as my brother. The last favor they ever did for me was letting me name my own son. Owen Lin Harris. His middle name means 'forest' in Chinese." She smiled sadly at the thought.

Raphael stared down at her. He wanted to go to her and hug her. Instead he reached out with one hand and place it on her cheek. He used his thumb to wipe away a stray tear that streamed down her face. "How could you live in the same house as him?" he couldn't keep from asking her. "Without being reminded of that night?"

Emmeline grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself to her feet. She sniffled loudly. "I couldn't," she said simply. She walked to the edge of the roof and started to lower herself onto the fire escape. Then she stopped and turned to face him. "You will tell your brothers, won't you?"

Raphael blanched. He hated the idea of telling his brothers this story - _her_ story, but at the same time, he knew he couldn't make her relive it again. All he could do was nod.

Emmeline tried her best to smile gratefully at him as she lowered herself down the ladder.

Raph walked over to the ledge and stood, staring down at her. He waited until she was safely on the escape platform before he spoke. "Hey," he said simply, causing her to look up at him inquiringly. He dropped down in front of her onto the platform and before he could think about what he was doing - before he could stop himself, he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, crushing her tiny frame against his chest. "I'm sorry," he murmured quietly into her ear. "I'm sorry this happened to you."

Emmeline's spine went rigid as Raphael's arms closed around her, caging her in with his strength. A part of her wanted to collapse into him and just be held there, locked in by the first person who didn't call her a slut for getting pregnant at fourteen. Raphael was the first one who had ever listened to her, and he was the first one she had ever told that as much as she loved her brother, sometimes she couldn't stand to look at him without thinking of what Hun had did to her. And she hated herself for it. But a larger part of her couldn't help but wonder what the hell was happening between the two of them in this moment. This was very un-Raphael-like behavior, and had he been anyone else, she probably would have slapped him. She pulled away slightly to look up at him.

At that moment, Raphael couldn't help but look down and realize that he could count the mere inches his face and hers. He could smell the scent of strawberry shampoo wafting off her hair and see the flecks of silver in her eyes wide, confused, questioning. A flush rose to his cheeks as he pushed her away and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Don't be who they think you are," he told her firmly. "Don't be who _he_ thinks you are. You're better than that." Inside he felt like something had been crushed into a pulp, deep within him. He needed her to be strong, so that he could keep being strong. This was an Emmeline he had never seen before - she was a teenage girl with all her walls down, acting just as scared and broken as he now felt. He turned and climbed over the wrought iron gate that enclosed the fire escape, and dropped away into the darkness.

Emmeline stared down at the spot in the street where he landed, watching as he disappeared into the night.

* * *

Raphael stood perched on the gleaming skyscraper that stood kitty-corner to the apartment building where Emmeline's parents lived along with her - son - brother? He wasn't quite sure what to think of Owen and his connection Emmeline. He wanted to think of the sweet, blue-eyed boy he had seen only in passing in pictures on her T-phone as just an innocent little toddler. Just another member of Emmeline's family. Instead, he couldn't help but think of him as Hun's offspring.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Leonardo's voice rang out, breaking him from his reverie. "She was raped?"

"By Hun?" Donatello added for clarity.

Raphael tore his eyes away from the Harris' building and spun around to look at

his brothers. Normally, he would be relaying information via the T-phone, but this was the sort of conversation that needed to be had in person. Even he knew that much. "That's what she said," he told them, nodding. "And I'm pretty sure even she's not messed up enough in the head to lie about something like this. Besides, it would explain a lot…" He voice trailed off as he thought the now eerie resemblance between Emmeline and Owen. She had forwarded a picture of the kid to his T-phone as proof in case his brothers questioned her story.

The two of them shared a lot of the same features - skin tone, eye color, hair color. There were only minute differences between the two of them - Owen's too straight nose, the more almond-shaped set of his eyes, and his stick straight hair. All traits that he had inherited from Hun, Raphael could now see.

Leonardo handed Raph back his T-phone. "It definitely would."

"Yeah, look at this," Donatello said, gesturing to something he had brought up on the screen of his own T-phone. "Nightmares, depression, PTSD, substance abuse - all common in sexual assault survivors. How didn't I see this before?"

Leo reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. "We didn't know what to look for."

"And she wasn't assaulted," Raphael corrected him with a scowl. "She was raped. That asshole ruined her life when she was even younger than we are. It's no wonder she had problems with the people at school. How the hell do you live down a reputation like that - especially when your family thinks you started it all yourself?"

There was a moment of silence as the others stared at him, unsure of what to say. Unsure of what they _could_ say. There wasn't any way to dress it up: Emmeline's family, her friends at school, even the teachers had turned against her and betrayed her for something that wasn't her fault. The worst part was that none of them had been willing to listen to her side of the story.

Even Raphael had made snap judgements about her. He thought back to the time he had accused her of sleeping with Hun for drugs. It was a comment he would regret making for the rest of his life. His brothers were the only ones who had been able to look through the rouse and see how very not alright Emmeline really was. Now, he couldn't help but wonder if it was because they were not so alright themselves.

"So, like, what happens now?" Michelangelo asked, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen over them.

Raph threw his hands up, frustrated. "If we go after Hun and the Dragons, the cops will think Emmeline did it."

"But she's in the group home," Leo reasoned.

"Then maybe they'd think the other girls helped her," Donatello chimed in. "They all have records, and so does Em. They all have something that makes them look bad."

Raphael shook his head and let out a breath. "She told the cops everything. I think we might just need to let them handle it."

"What if she doesn't want them to handle it?" Michelangelo said, twirling one of his nunchucks on his middle finger. "I mean, people do that, right - they don't always press charges or whatever."

"She's gonna press charges," Raphael said, jabbing him firmly in the chest with the blade of his sai.

"We can't force her, Raphael," Leonardo sighed heavily.

Raphael spun around to face him. "So what then - we just let him get away with it? We let him get away with raping our friend?"

"Of course not," Leonardo said. "All we can do is try to convince her to press charges, and support her decision either way."

Donatello reached out and put his hand on Raphael's shoulder. "That's what friends do."

Raph shrugged out of his grip and turned back to the Harris' building. "So who's got next shift?"

* * *

Emmeline slept in until well past eleven AM the next day. When she finally did wake, it was to see stripes of feeble, grey winter sunlight streaming through her window. She sat up and grabbed her T-phone to check the time. "Shit," she muttered, wiping sleep out of her bloodshot eyes. It was almost one O'clock.

"Hey."

She looked up to see Natalie standing in the doorway of her room. "Yeah?"

"Get showered and get dressed," Natalie instructed her. "You've got therapy at two."

"Well, that was fast," Emmeline said, climbing out of bed and wandering over to her dresser.

"Be quick," Natalie said as she started to walk away. "You have visitors."

Emmeline paused in front of her open dresser drawer. "Visitors?" she echoed, watching her go.

Ten minutes later, Emmeline bounded down the stairway that led to the front hall. She paused on the bottom step when she saw April and Casey lingering in the doorway to the staff office. "What are you guys doing here?" she asked them.

"Raphael gave us the address," April smiled at her in greeting. "He asked us to stop by."

"He also told us about Owen," Casey added.

Emmeline crossed her arms and couldn't help but scowl. She knew she should have expected Raphael to share her story with them, but she wished he had at least asked first. "So he just asked you to check up on me?"

"Sort of," April said with a shrug. "He really just wanted to know what you were gonna do now that cops know your story."

"Whether or not you were gonna press charges," Casey clarified.

Emmeline cast a wary look at the other residents in the house who were sitting in the living room just off the hall. She started off down the hall for the front door. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do," she told April and Casey as they trailed along behind her. She opened the door for them and followed them onto the front steps.

"Well, why not?" April asked.

Emmeline sighed and sat down in one of the worn, plastic garden chairs that stood at the foot of the steps. "If I press charges against Hun, then there's a chance he might retaliate."

"But isn't that why the guys are watching your - uh - Owen?" Casey said, frowning.

"He's still my brother," Emmeline said firmly. "And, yeah, that would be why. My lawyer says if I were to take Hun to court, it'd be a media circus."

April frowned. "Is that the only thing holding you back?"

Emmeline pulled out her T-phone and brought up a picture of Owen. "He doesn't know that I'm his mother. Taking Hun to court would mean putting everything out in the open, and Owen would find out that his father is nothing more than thug who raped his mom."

"But Owen is so young he wouldn't even remember any of it," April reminded her.

"Well, yeah," Emmeline said. "But once the story hits the media, there's no erasing that. And I wouldn't be the only one in the limelight - Owen would be, too, so would my whole family."

"Yeah but don't you want the world to know what they did to you?" Casey demanded, throwing his hands up. "How this whole thing got brushed under the rug because they thought you were just being a stupid teenager?"

Emmeline frowned up at him. "And what about when Owen finds out what they did - and he will find out. Eventually. When he's older."

"You won't have to worry about that for years, though," April countered.

"And what about how the world will react to what they did to me?" Emmeline asked, looking from April to Casey and back again. "Do you really think they would let Owen stay with my parents after that?"

April exchanged an uneasy glance with Casey. "Maybe your nanny could guardianship over him like she did with you."

"Maybe you could even get custody of him," Casey suggested.

Emmeline shook her head, frowning as she got to her feet. "Those things take time. Where would he be until I did - in a foster home? My parents deserve to be put through hell for what they did to me, but Owen is safe and happy with them. He shouldn't have to have his whole world up-ended because of something that happened to me." She pushed past the two of them and stomped up the front steps of the brownstone, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

A/N: Alright, so I am uploading early this week because I will not have access to Wifi this weekend. Hopefully, you guys like it.

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I cannot tell you how much your reviews mean to me, really. I'm glad you don't think I took this to too dark of a place, but I did this story would deal with some adult content, didn't I? Please, feel free to weigh in on this chapter. Where do you think Emmeline's story will go from here now that the past is out in the open? R&R, guys.

Thanks for reading.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

12

Raphael sat on the cool metal stool at the kitchen island silently. His hands were shaking slightly as he listened to the conversation, taking place between April and his brothers. He could _not_ believe what he was hearing, he thought as he subconsciously clenched and unclenched his fist on the countertop.

"So it doesn't look like she wants to press charges," April finished as she paced up and down the kitchen. "She's too afraid of what might happen to Owen."

Leo turned to Donatello and asked, "Do you really think they'd put him in a foster home?"

Donatello frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "If CPS found significant evidence of neglect, then maybe. It is also possible the court could give his nanny temporary custody. But then again, Emmeline's parents seem like they have enough money to buy their way out of trouble."

"But isn't that, like, illegal?" Michelangelo asked him.

Leonardo frowned. "I'm not sure they'd care."

"Yeah, walking in on your daughter having someone forced on her at gunpoint and not automatically calling in the cops is a pretty serious lapse in parental judgement," Raphael chimed in. "Because, clearly, that's just normal teenage behavior - you know, a harmless prank. It's not like she was obviously traumatized or anything." He got to his feet and pushed out the bar stool with a loud scrape.

"Raph," April said, coming to a pause beside the sink as he started to leave. "Yelling at her is only to going to make things worse."

"I'm not gonna yell at her," Raphael told her.

Of course, he was lying and he was sure they could probably tell. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she remembered all of the horrible things her parents had done to her: Brushing off her rape, throwing her out on the streets, taking her off their health insurance when she needed it the most. How could she possibly think that Owen would be any safer with those people than she had been?

Leonardo caught up with Raphael just as he reached the pit. "This is not our decision to make," he reminded Raph. "We've been over this already."

"Yeah, we said we were gonna let the cops handle it," Raph said, stepping over one of the benches as he crossed the room. "Which they won't if she doesn't press charges."

Leo stepped in front of him, blocking his path. "So what, exactly, are you planning to do?"

"What do you care, Leo?" Raphael spat at him. "You're not the one who had to talk to her about this last night - you're not the one the one who had to see her completely destroyed." He thought back to how Emmeline had knelt at his feet in tears on the rooftop of the group home, and felt his heart lerch in his chest. "Hun can't be allowed to get away with this," he said, pushing past his brother.

When he got to his room, he slammed the door shut behind him and threw himself down on the deflated mattress that served as his bed. Grumbling, he grabbed the remote to the stereo that stood like a sentinel beside his doorway and turned it, blaring, to the local rock station. Then he pulled out his T-phone and stared at it silently, contemplating what to say to her.

The truth was he had no idea what to say to her. It seemed like anything he could say would only start a fight and, for once, he was not interested in arguing with Emmeline. Before he had known about what had gone down between her and Hun, he had no idea if he wanted to be closer to her or not. Now, that he knew the truth all he knew for sure was that he never wanted to see her that way again. And the fact that Hun had forced himself on her against her will - the very thought made him want to punch something. It was more than that, though. It was more than just him wanting to get back at Hun for hurting his friend.

The idea of Emmeline being with _anyone_ against her will or otherwise infuriated Raphael. He couldn't help but think back to how he had held her and she hadn't immediately pushed him away or slapped him. Then again, she hadn't exactly seemed happy about it, either.

Raphael typed out a text message to Emmeline on his phone and immediately hit the Send button before he had a chance to change his mind.

* * *

"Wait, what?" Emmeline said into her T-phone, pacing up and down the sidewalk outside of the church where she was supposed to be attending her first AA group therapy session. "They fired you - why?"

"They found out about us moving in together," Becca told her. "Somehow, and now they don't want Owen to have ties to either one of us." She heaved a sigh. "I'm supposed to be out by the end of the day."

Emmeline watched a group of people, laughing and talking, head inside the church together and sat down on the front steps of the church. "So where you are gonna go?"

"A hotel," Becca said simply. "One of those pay-by-night places. Somewhere cheap."

"Well, I mean," Emmeline said, running one hand through her hair uncomfortably. "Can't you go somewhere better - like a friend's house?"

"I have some money saved up," Becca said. "But I'm gonna need it for when I finally find a place for us. Landlords usually want first and last month's rent upfront, and a lot of them will probably be expecting a security deposit, too."

"Shit," Emmeline said, shaking her head. "I need to get a job."

"We _both_ need to get jobs," Becca corrected her. "I actually might have something lined up for you, though. I think you'll like it."

"Just focus on finding you a job first," Emmeline told her firmly. "I'll give you whatever money I have leftover from selling my laptop, and we can put that towards the apartment."

"Sounds good," Becca said. "I'll Email you the link that the job application I was looking at for you. Make sure you fill it out."

"Yeah, I will," Emmeline said, although she wasn't sure what she could say on it that would help her get a job. Selling drugs didn't necessarily amount to retail skills. Maybe she could say she had customer service experience or good salesmanship abilities."So I'll see you on Friday?"

"Yeah, I'll see you then," Becca said, and then she hung up.

"Sounds like you have a lot going on."

Emmeline looked up to see Detective Reynolds and Marcus Welwood, her lawyer, standing over her. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Natalie informed us of your whereabouts," Welwood told her, smiling warmly.

Reynolds nodded and said, "We've got some news about your case."

"Already?" Emmeline asked. "I thought we wouldn't know anything until next month?"

"Well, that's when everything will be made official," Reynolds said. "Your case is pretty much open and shut, though. You didn't have drugs on you when you turned yourself in and you gave us a lot of useful information."

"So what?" Emmeline said incredulously. "I'm getting off easy?"

Reynolds nodded, kicking at a pebble on the sidewalk. "Pretty much - at least, you will if you accept what the judge is willing to offer."

"And that is?" Emmeline asked.

Welwood held his hand up in a peace offering. "Now, we need you to be open-minded about this because we really do think this is in your own best interest and, frankly, I think this is the best deal you're gonna get."

Emmeline looked from Reynolds to Welwood and back again. "What is he talking about?"

Reynolds sighed, "We need you to press charges against Hun and testify against him in open court in addition to pleading guilty to all charges against you. In exchange, the judge is offering a year and a half of probation with community service."

"She's freaking kidding, right?" Emmeline demanded, jumping to her feet. "I can't testify against Hun!"

"You don't have a choice," Reynolds told her, stepping between Emmeline and Welwood. "If you don't taking this deal, you're looking at time in juvie and a retrial when you turn eighteen and then you won't be allowed to move in with your nanny after that's over with."

"Son a bitch!" Emmeline said, kicking the side of the church. "And what about Owen?" she added, digging her nails into the brick-and-mortar structure. "He'll probably get put in a foster home, right?"

Reynolds exchanged a glance with Welwood. "There's a chance he might sent to live with your sister."

Emmeline sighed, shaking her head. "Vivika could never take care of him. She's just a college student - she relies on our parents for everything."

"There is no guarantee that your brother will be placed in a foster home," Welwood reminded her.

Emmeline looked down at the T-phone, still clenched tightly in her fist. "My parents fired Becca as his nanny," she said, squeezing the phone tightly. "So there's going to be a stranger raising him, no matter what happens."

"From what you've said about your family, is that really a bad thing?" Reynolds asked. "Think about it," she added before she turned and started to walk away.

Just then, the T-phone went off in Emmeline's hand.

"Look," Welwood sighed. "We have until next week to decide if you wanna take the deal, which I highly recommend that you do. If you don't, then there's a good chance that they'll subpoena will be filed against you for your testimony."

"So I'll have to do it anyway?" Emmeline asked.

"More than likely, yes," Welwood said. "Call me when you make up your mind." Then he turned and left.

Emmeline looked down at her T-phone silently and opened the text message she had just received from Raphael:

If they wouldn't take proper care of you, what makes you think they'd take good care of him?

* * *

Emmeline ended up being twenty minutes late to her first AA session, but she managed to catch most of it and was perfectly happy to sit in the background, listening to everyone else telling their sob stories. When it finally ended over an hour later, a tall boy with sandy-colored hair and glasses approached her on her way out.

"I've never seen you here before," he said, following her up the stairs and out of the church's basement.

"How very observant of you," Emmeline muttered, opening the door of the basement and letting it slam shut behind her, nearly hitting the kid in the face.

"So," the boy said. "Are you here because your dad is an alcoholic or whatever?"

"My dad is a lawyer," Emmeline informed him. "I'm here because I'm a crackhead."

The boy came to a pause behind her. "I see," he said, trailing along after her. "My mom is addicted to meth, that's why I'm here."

"Lucky you," Emmeline said as they exited the church.

They walked in silence for a couple of blocks. Emmeline balanced herself precariously on the curb edge with her arms out at her sides like a tightrope walker.

Finally, the boy cleared his throat and said, "I'm Gavin, by the way." He offered her his hand to shake.

Emmeline looked at his hand as though it were infected with a contagious illness. "So, tell me, Gavin - do you chat up all the crackheads or am I just lucky?"

"Oh, you know," Gavin grinned at her. "Only the pretty ones."

Emmeline opened her mouth to respond, but paused when they rounded the corner that led to the group home and saw a cop car parked out in front of it. Natalie, Amelia, Vanessa, and the rest of the girls, including one Emmeline did not recognize, were all crowded around the front steps of the brownstone.

"You better get lost, Gavin," she instructed him. Then she bolted across the street to where the crowd was gathered in front of the group home. "Natalie!"

Natalie spun on her heel to face her. "There you are," she said, grabbing Emmeline by the shoulder. "We need to talk to you."

"If this is about my case, I already talked to Detective Reynolds and my lawyer," Emmeline told her.

"This is not about that," Natalie said, shaking her head.

"What -?" Emmeline started to say.

"They found drugs in your bed," Vanessa said, cutting her off.

"High-grade cocaine," Amelia said, turning to join in the conversation.

"What?!" Emmeline spat at her. "That's impossible - I've been clean for weeks. There isn't a dealer in the city who will sell to me and the cops went through my shit when I moved in here. If I had had anything, they would have found it."

"Yes, well, you're still going to have to pass a drug test," Natalie told her firmly.

Just then a uniformed police officer exited the group home and walked over to them. "The rest of the house is clean," he told Natalie.

"Just like I thought it would be," Natalie said with a sigh. "Thank you, officer." She turned back to Emmeline. "I have to say, this is not helping your case."

Emmeline scowled, but remained silent as the cop climbed inside his car and pulled away from the curb. She knew what was happening. As quietly as she could, she pulled out her T-phone and dialed Raphael's number.

He answered on the first ring. "Hey," he greeted her. "You alright - you never responded to my text."

Emmeline watched as the others started to file into the house. "It's been a long day," she said simply at last.

"Have you decided whether or not you're gonna press charges?" Raphael asked somewhat hesitantly.

Emmeline bit back a retort. She was tired of fighting with Raphael, especially after the way he had listened to her last night. She didn't want them to fight anymore. She sighed, "I don't really have a choice in the matter."

"What's that mean?" Leonardo's voice came suddenly.

"Am I on speaker?" Emmeline groaned into the phone.

There was a moment of silence before someone finally said something. "Well, this is pretty important news," Donatello reasoned with her.

"Sorry about that," Raphael said apologetically. " _Someone_ snatched my phone away because he thought everyone needed to be in on this."

"Whatever," Emmeline said, rolling her eyes. "I guess the cops are looking for any excuse to bring Hun in, so they're trying to pressure me into pressing charges against him. In exchange, I will get a lesser sentence."

"That's good news, right?" Michelangelo asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, except for the part where they want me to testify against him in open court," Emmeline informed them.

"Wait a minute," Raphael said. "They can't force you to testify - you're off speaker phone, by the way."

"My lawyer said if I don't agree to it, then they'll just subpoena me," Emmeline told him. "Anyway, that's not why I'm calling."

"Something up?" Raphael asked, his voice suddenly taking on a hard edge.

Emmeline looked around to make sure she was alone and that none of the other girls were nearby. She sank into the gardening chair at the base of the front steps and said, "I'm pretty sure either one of the Dragons or those Foot ninja you guys told me about was here."

"At the group home?" Raphael clarified. "Why do you think that?"

"Apparently," Emmeline said. "The staff found a packet of high-grade cocaine in my room. Like the kind I used to sell."

Raphael considered this for a moment. Then he said, "Are you sure it doesn't belong to your roommate?"

"It could belong to anyone," Emmeline said, shaking her head as though he could see her. "But they found it in my bed so..." Her voice trailed off.

"Emmeline!"

She turned to see Natalie standing at the top of the front steps. "Yeah?" she asked her.

"You need to get off the phone and get inside," Natalie told her. "We are giving everyone drug tests right now." She turned and went back inside, slamming the front door behind her.

"I'm pretty sure Hun is trying to send me a message," Emmeline said, getting to her feet and starting up the steps.

"What kind of message?" Raph asked her.

Emmeline paused on the top step outside the door. "Let's assume the Foot, who the Dragons are working for, have friends in high places - like the police department," she said, thinking aloud. "What if they know I told the cops about Hun raping me - and this is their way of trying to clear up that problem? What if this is their way of saying everything could go back to normal if I don't press charges?"

Raphael sighed and said, "Do you think it's possible you're overthinking this?"

"Look," Emmeline said, ducking inside the house. "Just run it past the guys and see what they think, but I know how Hun thinks, remember - he and I were close for a long time."

"That's a pretty twisted way to look at things," Raphael told her. "He got you addicted to coke, so you'd forgive him for what he did to you and keep coming back for more."

Emmeline did not respond. Instead, she simply hung up the phone and tucked it back inside her pocket.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so this chapter was ridiculously hard for me to write. Sorry this chapter is so short, and I apologize if there is too much dialogue. I am so excited to write the rest of this story, though, guys. Now, that Raph and Emmeline are no longer at each other's throats, who knows what kinda turns their friendship could take? And who is _really_ behind the cocaine in Emmeline's room?

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Please, lemme know your thoughts on this chapter and what's to come! Thanks, guys! 3


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

13

The turtles were all gathered around the table in Donatello's lab, watching him type away on his computer in an attempt to zero in on the location of another canister of mutagen. Raphael stood with his arms crossed, scowling. "Do you think it's possible?" he asked his brothers. "Could Hun be trying to send her a message?"

"I wouldn't rule it out," Leonardo said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Yeah but aren't there easier ways to send a message?" Michelangelo asked, sitting down on Donnie's metal work table. "Like I don't know, Email or maybe a postcard?"

"Easier usually means more obvious, too, though," Donatello reminded him. "Besides, if the cops know that the Purple Dragons are after Emmeline, don't you think they'd monitoring all of that - you know, for her protection? That is their job, after all."

Raphael shook his head, wanting to point out that that was also supposed to be _their_ job as well. Instead, he said, "So there's no way to know for sure?"

Donnie froze in his seat, his spine suddenly going rigid. "Well, there is one way," he said.

Raph raised an eyebrow at him. "Which is what, pray tell?"

Donnie spun around in his seat to face all of them. "We would need to gain access to whatever the staff at the group home found in Emmeline's room, and a sample to compare it to. If the two have the same molecular make up - you know, are made from the same ingredients and everything - then we could, for sure, trace it back to the Dragons," he told them.

"And how, exactly, would we get those things, Donatello?" Leonardo asked, unsure if he actually wanted to know the answer.

Donatello turned his gaze to his fingertips. "Well, if Emmeline is gonna press charges against Hun, she's gonna need to go to the precinct eventually to give an official statement and since the drugs were found in her room, the cops are probably using it as evidence in her case file," he began, knowing even as he said what a terrible idea it was. "And I was thinking since the Dragons probably have dealers all over the city, she'll probably know someone and we could have Casey -"

Leo held up a hand to silence him. "Just stop," he said simply, shaking his head.

"Lemme get this straight," Raphael said, pushing past Leonardo and Michelangelo, so that he stood directly in front of Donnie. "You want a recovering drug addict to _steal high-grade cocaine from the police_ and bring it back down here to us where we will have more cocaine waiting to be tested to see if we can trace it back to the people who got her addicted in the first place?"

Donnie turned back to his computer and resumed his typing. "I never said it was a great idea."

"Yeah, it's pretty terrible," Michelangelo chuckled in agreement.

"He is right about one thing, though," Leonardo interjected quickly.

"And what might that be?" Raphael asked him.

"The Dragons have dealers all over the city," Leo said, turning to him. "If they have a dealer located in Brooklyn, it wouldn't exactly be difficult for them to get inside the group home."

"Not if they said they were just visiting one of the other residents," Raphael finished, realization dawning on him.

* * *

"You can't trust any of those other girls, Em," Raphael's voice echoed through the T-phone later that night. It felt weird that they were friendly enough that he could call her by a nickname, but it was a good weird. "They might be working for the Dragons."

Emmeline paced up the length of the walk-in closet she shared with Vanessa. It was almost eight O'clock at night, and all of the other girls were downstairs watching a movie. Still, the only way she could feel safe was by locking herself in her closet. "Or the Dragons might have something on one of them," she sighed, sitting on the floor beneath one of the lower hanging shelves.

Raphael was silent for a moment before he finally said, "You've been thinking a lot about this, haven't you?"

"I've been thinking about a lot of things," Emmeline told him.

"Such as?" Raph asked her.

This time, it was Emmeline who was silent. Her thoughts drifted back to the last conversation she had had with Raphael and about how he had said about her friendship with Hun had been twisted. It was something she had always known, but never acknowledged, especially not when she had been getting high off of his product. Raphael was the first person who had ever voiced those thoughts out loud to her - the first one who didn't describe him as her hoodlum boyfriend or whatever. And he had said it without judging her. Now, she couldn't shake the feeling that Raphael could see some part of her that she had hidden away. Or maybe that she should let him see that part of her - the part that was innocent and trusting.

"Hey, earth to Em!" Raphael said, breaking her train of thought.

"Sorry," Emmeline said, pushing the thoughts hurriedly aside. "It's just you really get a change of perspective when someone asks you to pee in a cup with the door open." She laughed humorlessly.

"Yeah, a little too much info," Raphael told her, and for the first time, Emmeline could have sworn he was smiling while talking to her.

"They're sending us for blood tests tomorrow," she said, turning her attention to her cuticles.

"Well, those are harder to fake," Raph said as though it were obvious.

Emmeline rolled her eyes at how smug he was. "Yeah, don't remind me, please."

"Oh, is the big bad Snow White afraid of needles?" Raphael asked jokingly.

"Well, I don't love them," Emmeline couldn't help but laugh in response. "And, please, don't call me that. When it finally comes out that I'm Owen's mother, I don't want him to know that anyone ever used to call me that."

"Well, it's a little late for that, isn't it?" Raphael said, his tone turning serious. "How'd you get that name, anyway?"

Emmeline frowned. "It used to be just a nickname, you know, because I sort of look like her with the hair and eyes and everything," she said, wanting to spare him the details.

"Did _he_ give it to you?" Raphael asked her.

Emmeline pulled away from the phone, surprised at the iciness in his voice. "Do you really wanna know?" she shot, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.

"Not really," Raph admitted.

"Then why ask?" Emmeline demanded. "God, you're such a -"

"Yeah," Raphael said, cutting her off. "I know…" His voice trailed off before he added, "Look, I know that's not who you are. I just wanted to know, that's all. I was curious, that's all."

"Well, why do you care?" Emmeline asked him.

"Because I do," Raph snapped at her. "Is that so bad?"

"What?" Emmeline said, surprised at the heat that rose to her cheeks. "No, I didn't say that. It's just -"

"Yo, Em!"

She fell silent as the sound of her roommate's voice filtering through the closed door of the closet. "I gotta go," she said apologetically. "I'll text you."

"Just remember," Raphael told her in a hurried whisper. "You can't trust her."

"I know!" Emmeline told him.

She turned off the T-phone and shoved it in her pocket as she got to her feet. "Hey," she said to Vanessa, pushing open the closet door.

Vanessa looked at her like she was insane. "Why were you in the closet?" she asked her.

Emmeline shrugged and went to go lay down on her bed. "Oh, you know," she said, rolling over onto her side. "Just wanted to be alone."

"Whatever," Vanessa said somewhat hesitantly. "Who were you talking to in there?"

"Eavesdropping, huh?" Emmeline asked, her voice taking on a playful tone as she tried to push all thoughts of the conversation out of her head. She wasn't sure what she had been thinking, telling Raphael all of that, and had he actually said that he cared about her?

Maybe she _was_ insane.

"Girl, please, you just a big mouth," Vanessa laughed, sitting down on her own bed.

"Yeah, okay," Emmeline grinned at her.

"It was him, wasn't it?" Vanessa asked her. "That Raphael guy?"

Emmeline's smile vanished. "Yeah, so?"

"So," Vanessa said, laughing. "What were you guys talking about?"

"Just about all the drama that went down today," Emmeline told her, trying her best to downplay the conversation. "He just wants me to be careful and stuff, that's all."

"And stuff," Vanessa echoed, nodding. She laid down on her side, facing Emmeline and added, "See, I knew he cared about you."

Emmeline scoffed. "Yeah, okay. I doubt it."

"If he's worried about you, then he cares about you," Vanessa told her.

Emmeline shook her head. "Anyone can say that they're worried and they care about you. It doesn't mean they mean it."

"Yeah, but you said he listens to you, right?" Vanessa reminded her. "Why would he listen to you if he didn't care?"

"Look, I really don't wanna talk about this," Emmeline said, rolling over to face the wall. "I have bigger things to worry about."

She grabbed one of her pillows and pulled it towards her, hugging it to her chest as she tried to block out the sounds of the rest of the girls coming upstairs for bed. She didn't know why she was so freaked out by this conversation. She had been with guys - tons of guys before. Guys like Alex Matthews. But that had been different, she admitted to herself. Half the time she had been high when she was with them - okay, most of the time. And, besides, she had never cared about any of them just like they had never cared about her. They had been nothing. Meaningless.

Was Raphael meaningless?

* * *

Raphael sat silently on the heavily carpeted floor of the training platform, staring down at his T-phone. He closed his fist tightly around the phone and heaved a sigh. Why had he said those things to her? The last thing he wanted was to start an argument. He was tired of fighting of Emmeline, so why…?

"You seem troubled, my son."

Raph looked up to see Splinter standing over him. "Master," he said. "Why is it I can only seem to say terrible things to her?"

Splinter knelt down on the floor beside Raphael and set his staff down on the floor. He stared out at the pit where the other turtles were sitting with April and Casey. "Your brothers have told me about your friend Emmeline's past," he told Raphael simply.

Raphael looked up at him. "So you know about…?" His voice trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

"The child," Splinter concluded, nodding. " _Hai_. She has suffered a terrible injustice."

Raphael looked back down at the T-phone in his hand. "I know," he said. "I know it wasn't her fault, but I can't help be feel angry about it."

" _Hai,_ " Splinter said, looking down at his son. "But who are you angry at?"

Raph sighed, shaking his head and pushed himself to his feet. "Why wasn't she more careful?" he said, thinking aloud. "Why did she let _him_ get so close - if she hadn't, then none of us would be in this position. She wouldn't be locked up in a group home, and I wouldn't have to spend my nights babysitting a murdering thug's kid."

Splinter was silent for a moment before he said, "Do you regret meeting Emmeline Harris, Raphael?"

Raphael spun around to face him. "What?" he said, shaking his head. "No, I just - I wish we could have met under different circumstances."

"Then you should put your anger where it belongs," Splinter said, using his staff to push himself to his feet. "Behind you - like the past. Holding onto anger is like swallowing poison, Raphael: Painful and the only one you're hurting is yourself."

"Hey, you guys are gonna wanna see this!"

Raphael looked up to see Donatello rolling a dry erase board with a map of the city taped to it into the pit. "What's going on?" he asked, looking at the map, which was dotted with round circular stickers.

"You remember earlier when I was trying to triangulate the location of that mutagen canister?" Donatello said, righting the board so that it now faced all of them.

"What about it?" Leonardo asked him.

"Well," Donnie said. "While I was at it, I picked up the signature for three more canisters all in the same area."

"Four canisters in one area of the city?" Leo echoed, crossing his arms. "That hardly feels random."

"It isn't," Donatello told him. He pointed to the stickers on the map. "Each of the stickers indicates the location of a mutagen canister. These are the four I picked up on tonight."

Raphael studied the board for a moment before realization dawned on him. The stickers that Donnie pointed to formed a perfect square on the map. "These are all in Manhattan."

"That's right," Donatello said, nodding. "In Battery Park City, to be precise, and look what they're all centered around." He pointed to a building in the very center of the square.

Raphael recognized the address immediately. "That's the building where Emmeline's parents live."

Maybe Emmeline was right, he thought as he took in the sight of the map in front of him. Maybe Hun was trying to send a message.

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry if it doesn't seem like a lot has happened in this chapter. I promise there will be more action in the next one.

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. Please, continue to share your thoughts with me and look forward to the next chapter. It will be up soon.


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